Work took me down to Emery County for a couple days of digging in the archives. On my way out of Castledale on the last day, I realize I was only a few miles from the Wedge. I figured it was my moral duty to go for a quick run before driving home. For something new, I started at the Wedge Overlook and ran WEST along the dirt road, and then a bit along the rim, then to the overlook…
I grew up snowboarding in NW Washington and had never skied. However, lots of my trailrunning friends have been posting pictures of backcountry ski-touring. I couldn’t let them have all the fun so I hunted on the used classifieds and put together a pretty good set-up. Some Surface Sherpa skis with dynafit speed turn tech bindings, some La Sportiva sparkle tech boots, and some G3 skins. So, before I knew it, I was skinning up Sq Peak road and…
President’s Day Weekend trip to Moab! It was wet and a bit rainy, but great. We did the Island in the Sky and Needles Districts of Canyonlands and Arches. Pictures will go on the family blog.
Every winter I start pounding out more pavement miles because I’m too lazy to run the snowy or muddy trails and every winter I get overuse injuries. So far so good this winter! I have mixed in some treadmill with some street runs, culminating with an accidental 1/2 marathon. I have only done a 1/2 on pavement once before. This time, I was planning to run from the mouth of Provo Canyon up to Nunn’s Park and back – about…
Snow has arrived (finally!) in Utah. I have only ventured out a few times, but it has been pretty great. In mid-November my back tweaked again (see my nightmare injury from Summer 2015). I decided to test it out on the Lindon Squiggles and foothills below Dry Canyon. It started beautiful and ended with a whiteout. I knew a system was moving in, but figured I’d be ok not venturing too far from my car. It was fun to get…
Phoenix’s South Mountain Park/Preserve was the site two years ago of my first time ever running a marathon distance – a 29 slog that hurt more than it should have. I was undertrained and paid for it. Of course, it was simultaneously amazing. Back in AZ for the holidays I set my mind to revisiting those familiar trails and proving that I had improved as a runner. I drew out a altered route that totaled 32 miles (50k). 3 loops…
For some reason my last few local runs have all been around the Johnson’s Hole area. There are a lot of dirt access roads for the aqueducts and water infrastructure up there – which makes for some nice easy miles, when I’m too lazy or beat up to bang out the singletrack. Here’s some recent routes. I took the kids up to some boulders above Johnson’s Hole that have petroglyphs on them. Very cool. They are quite weathered due to…
Work found me in Nashville, Tennessee this week. I managed to squeeze in one run in the large Percy Warner Park. Fall leaves were bright and the temperatures were perfect. The trails were well-maintained but at times rocky. I was particularly surprised by how taxing the constant up-down-up-down was. Very hilly and tough to get into a good rhythm. The fact that my stomach was totally off (too much delicious fried southern food) probably didn’t help.
I found myself in St. Paul Minnesota for work and with a free afternoon. I made the most of it, taking a bus out to trail head and then linking the Battle Creek Regional Park(s) and Indian Mounds State Park trails back to my hotel. Good times.
I suspected there was still a lot of color up in the hills. I was right. From a distance, the flanks of Big and Little Baldy looked like they were covered by motley patches of multicolored lichen or something.