With the family still out of town, I took a longer excursion up to the top of Farmington Canyon to run the Great Western Trail from Francis Peak to Thurston and back. I had done this once before, and wanted to get it in again before the canyon road was shut down. As I drove up, however, I noticed an oddly large volume of 4×4 pickup trucks going up and down the canyon. Then, I noticed people in orange vests…and…
Back from my conference in Tucson, my family was out of town – so I had to take advantage of having free time to myself. Up till now I had only run solo. Even in Kearney on the streets – I may have run one time with my wife. My next door neighbor said he was up for a run, even though he runs full-on 100 mile ultras. He agreed to not make fun of my slow pace. I was…
In October I had a conference to attend down in Tucson, so I decided to drive. My plan was to find a place to run somewhere in the middle of the drive and I chose an obscure canyon that gets easy access to the Colorado River. It is Soap Creek Canyon, south of the 89a and the Vermillion Cliffs. The night before I couldn’t sleep so I just hit the road around 3:30 AM – arriving at the trail-head around…
I was feeling good on the trails. THRILLED about going 6-9 miles. But, I was realizing that there was a bit of self-deception. My PACE on the trails was slow. That is normal for trail running. A bit slower overall – fast power hiking on big climbs, etc… You aren’t running at a full street pace the whole time. So, I was wondering if I could put in 6-9 miles on the pavement. I suspected not. I decided to shoot…
High on the excitement of feeling a little bit familiar with the Davis Creek trails, and having looked at the map a lot, I decided to explore further. I went up towards Pretty Valley, but cut East up the hill on what I thought was going to be a trail. It was not. More scratches and lesson learned. If it looks like it “might” be a trail…that’s about all it is – it “might” be a trail. But it is…
Another hike with the kids We hiked up the Davis Creek trail to the first bench, which is pretty steep, and they did great!
Despite my declaration that I would use Flag Rock to train my legs, I looked up at the hills and couldn’t help but go explore something new. The trails up to Flag Rock or Steed Creek are more heavily traveled than the smaller trails going up the much smaller Davis Creek Canyon. I started up the Mtn. face north of the creek – trying to find the “Triumph Trail” I found on the Farmington Trails Map. I did the first…
I quickly decided that I needed to convert the wife and kids to the trails as well. My girl is 5.5 and son was almost 3. We went up the north side of the Davis Creek drainage on the “triumph trail” up to the overlook of the lower waterfalls. They did alright for being so little. We did see one rattlesnake, which the Mrs. was not thrilled about.
One thing I was quickly realizing is that if I could strengthen my lungs and legs, I could go farther and enjoy more trails. I decided that I would try to regularly run the trial up to Flag Rock. It is steep and short, about 1,400 ft. in 1.5 miles up. So – great for training my climbing legs. It was a great run, much better than the first time I tried with sans water. 4.9 miles, 16:13 mile/min pace,…
In early September 2013, my next door neighbor and I went shoe shopping for me. I tried on a few different pairs of trail shoes, but couldn’t commit. A couple days later he came over with a pair of Brooks Cascadia 8s. He had only used them a few times and they were only a size bigger than what I usually wear, and it turns out that lots of trail runners and ultramarathoners buy a size or 1/2 bigger because…