Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

I went out for a road ride this evening. Just my usual out-and-back up Suncrest. The headwinds were ridiculous on the way out. It took me 23 minutes to climb Suncrest, which is longer than I can ever remember it taking. At least on fresh legs. 

The thing about headwinds as that they usually make the return trip a lot more fun. That was mostly true tonight, but not on the descent. There's something about being blown around by constantly changing winds while riding at 40-50 mph that's more stressful than enjoyable. 

Another three miles tonight. I was going to run four, but then I didn't feel like it. Or rather, I decided I'd be better off with dinner and sleep. Man, I feel like a bum these days.

I got out reasonably early this morning (reasonably early for me, all things considered) and rode the Alpine Loop, with a quick detour up to Tibble Fork Reservoir. I think the last time I rode the loop was in the 2009 Tour of Utah, so yeah, it's been a while. Great ride, though. I should do it more often.

I felt like I was cruising nicely up the Sundance side of the climb, but I hit the top in 50 minutes flat. It's not awful, but it's not exactly burning up the road, either.

(In case any one was planning on calling me on the mileage discrepancy, I forgot to switch my Garmin to cycling mode for the first mile. 

My brother and I decided to take advantage of the holiday to explore a new trail in the area, so we headed up Spanish Fork Canyon. After riding up some trail whose name I can't remember, we picked up Second Water and rode it to Center Trail, past Third Water and then down Fourth Water. (Our plan was to ride Center all the way to Fifth Water, but by the time we hit Fourth we were do far behind schedule that we thought better of it. Thanks to the loose, rocky surface, there had been a lot of hike-a-bike going on since we picked up Second Water.)

At the bottom of Fourth Water, we took the road over to lower Fifth Water, which sent us back to the car. Fifth was a great trail, but it's also the trail that leads to the hot springs. Mellow, short hike + hot springs = exactly the kind of trail you want to avoid riding on a holiday.

Overall, it was a good ride, although it took much longer than expected. I think the full loop will make a phenomenal 21ish-mile long run. One hundred percent runnable, with beautiful scenery and a swimming opportunity at the end. 

By the way, for anyone who also reads Catherine's blog, she's back. Head over and say hi if you get a chance.

I went out for my first trail run in a while--I know for a fact it's been longer than two weeks, but I'm not sure how much longer (and I don't feel like reviewing past entries to figure it out). It was just a quick out and back up Grove Creek Canyon to the bench (no watch, because timing myself would be depressing), but it felt great.

Afterward I did push-ups. I decided to start the 100 push-ups and 200 sit-ups programs again, because I feel like a weakling. We'll see if I even keep it up for a week. 

I went mountain biking this evening. BST from Battle Creek to the Gun Range, then up past the Altar to Trail 51 and eventually back to the BST. It was fun, even if I get scared sometimes because I suck. The real bonus is that wrestling that singlespeed up steep, loose trails is a serious workout.

By the way, Catherine and I will be in the hospital tomorrow so she can have a heart procedure done. (Heart surgery, really, but that makes it sound much scarier than it is.) Keep her in your prayers.

Catherine's procedure went well. I go into much more detail about it here.

This evening, I went mountain biking with my brother (have I mentioned that I really love my mountain bike?). We rode a much shorter version of yesterday's ride. Starting from Dry Canyon, we rode the BST over to the Little Baldy Trail, then up to Trail 51, and back down Dry Canyon. I smoked my brother on the climbs. He smoked me on the descents. So pretty much a typical ride for us.

At one point, I got so focused on cleaning a climb that by the time I realized I couldn't make it, I didn't have time to unclip and I toppled into a bed of rocks. Now I have a bruised and bloody shin. 

I'm so tired tonight,

It hasn't been much of a week for running. But I'm happy with my on-the-bike time. 

Alpine Loop with a couple of friends. The pace up the climb was much more mellow than last week. And some idiot driver tried to kill us on the descent.

I went out for a quick out and back on the road today. It's sad that this constitutes a longish run for me these days. It's even sadder that we're only one day into the week and I've already run more than I did last week. Of course, I doubt I'll get to spend nearly as much time on the bike this week.

Really, this shouldn't even count. I was resigned to a goose egg today, but then I couldn't help going for a 2:00 run before going to bed. But once I headed out the door I didn't want to run anymore, so I cut my planned short run even shorter. Honestly, there's not much benefit to a 3:15 run. But whatever.

I have excuses. First, someone didn't pull a source for the law review article I was editing. Which means that to meet my deadline, I had to drive to Provo and look up a book just to confirm that one sentence was where the author said and said what the author said it did. There goes at least an hour. Second, when I was out studying, our refrigerator made a loud noise and then stopped making any noise. I was sure it had broken, and we have almost a month worth of milk for Elliott frozen in there. To avoid a tragic loss, I jumped in the car an drove to WalMart, where I bought a couple of coolers and a bunch of ice. Of course, when I got home the refrigerator was running like nothing had happened. There goes at least another hour.

And that's why I did a fake run today. And that's why there are 30 pounds of ice out melting on my doorstep as I type this. 

Just another quick three-mile run tonight. Six-times better than last night.

I had a call-back interview with a firm in Salt Lake today. The Samurai works there, so afterward I went for a short run with him and three other attorneys (including the boss)--strictly business, of course :) 

We ran a bit late, so it was a little stressful because I was supposed to pick Elliott up at her grandma's, but it was still a good run. From Mill Creek we ran up Big Water to Dog Lake, then over to Desolation Lake, then down Mill D to Big Cottonwood, where a car was waiting. Beautiful trails up there, and when was the last time I got to run 10 miles?

Quick evening run.

I was going to write and explain what led me to miss a a day, and on a weekend, no less. But it's been so long now that I don't feel like going into detail anymore. Let's just say that I woke up at 12:45 so I could drive to Vegas for a 9:00 job fair, and then I drove right back home. Then Catherine and I went to watch the BYU game at my sister's house (what an awful, awful game). By the time it was all done, I had been up for just shy of 24 hours straight. Understandably, I was too tired to run.

Another (very) short evening run.

We renewed our gym memberships, so I decided to head over for some late night climbing on the treadmill. I ran 30 minutes on the 15 percent grade at mostly 15:00 per mile, with four one-minute intervals at 10:00.

I ran my usual three-mile night loop. One of the roads is under construction, so the bike lane I usually run in is full of cars now. I improvised and ran in the construction zone.

More treadmill climbing. Nice and steady--no intervals tonight.

(Nearly) midnight run. I ran half a block past our house to make it a 5K.

Well, I seem to have fallen behind in my blogging the way I've fallen behind in my running. I've updated the miles for each day this week, as well as a comment or two about each run, so I guess I'm up to date now. I'll try to do better going forward.

Anyway, I got a reasonably early start this morning and headed over to Corner Canyon for what I think might be my first mountain bike ride in the past couple of weeks. Which is too bad, because I've rediscovered lately that I really like mountain biking.

I rode a route I've been wanting to try for a while: Hog Hollow to Jacob's Ladder to Ghost Falls to Canyon Hollow to Rush to Clark's Trail to Hog Hollow. Try keeping that straight. It was a good ride, with about 3,000 feet of climbing, all of it rideable on the single speed. But it was shorter (in time and distance) than I expected. I had budgeted 3 hours of ride time this morning, but I was done in just under two hours (elapsed, not riding).

Anyway, I'm happy to be in double digits for my running miles this week. Maybe I'll try to get out for another short run this evening and put myself over 15.

EDIT: No run tonight, but I did get out for another ride with my brother. Hooray for mountain bikes!

I stopped for a quick run up Grove Creek on my way home from school this evening. I feel out of shape these days, but I hit the bench in 25:03 on my way to the bridge, which is a perfectly respectable time.

Today was one of those days where I almost didn't squeeze a run in. But someone (I won't say who) dropped my toothbrush on the bathroom floor, which gave me an excuse to run over to the grocery store before getting ready for bed. A couple of laps around the cul de sac down the road made it an even two miles.

Three miles in the evening. I've been making up for my decreased volume with increased speed, it seems. 

I ran up Grove Creek again this evening, turning around at the bench. I felt better than I did on Monday, and I assumed that was because I was running so much slower, but I ended up being only 5 seconds slower. The return trip was a different story, however--technical descents in the dark still aren't a strength of mine.

After I got home, I went for a quick run with Catherine and Elliott. I know Catherine likes it. I think Elliott does, too.

Another three mile loop. It's funny--I've been running almost exclusively in my flats for the past few months, but my calves still get sore.

Also, I went in for some dental work yesterday and part of my face is still numb, I called my aunt, who's a dentist, and she says it sounds like they damaged a nerve when injecting the anesthetic. It will probably get better in the next few weeks, but it might not. For now, it means weird sensations in my face when I run.