j-lyn's corner

Made a loop from the prospetcor, cottonwood hills, and spanish wash trails. I did it all by myself, and minus a very small amount of backtracking when a wash split, never got lost/confused/etc. I RAN A LOOP ALL BY MYSELF! If you know me, you know that's a Big Deal. This is a first.

So the back trails were described (on a mountain biking site in an effort to deter people from going there) as "terrible deep unrideable sand." I think a better description would be "post-holing in sand through flesh-eating bushes." It's substantially more accurate, and it provides a realistic interpretation of the local flaura and fauna. True to desert form, everything on that trail wanted to sting/bite/poison/filet my body.

It was all quite loveable, but felt a bit harder than I had hoped.

My legs were stiff ratchets. Day 3 of my Thanksgiving to New Years squat challenge. Ouch. I hope it gets easier.

Yesterday I forgot to do my squats. Doing double today should teach me my lesson to NOT do that again. Ugh.

Since it took 3x as long to drive the one mile from work to my house, I decided not to drive the additional mile to the trailhead. Ran out and thought I'd get 8-10 miles at dimple dell. When I got to dimple dell the snow was deeper than my injinjii socks are high (which in my boots is quite high) and after a quarter mile I realized that I didn't have time for this, so I hopped back onto the sandy rail trail (paved) which "only" had 2-3 inches of snow.

It's hard to describe having your eyelashes freeze together, and only forcing them apart every-so-many-steps to identify what general direction you're heading. The snow melted on my face and froze. Eventually I tried to wipe it off, but it had frozen into a jagged sandpaper and I realized I wasn't going to get it off without removing a layer of skin so I left it. Even still I relished in the quiet flakes- snow is the silent, deliriously peaceful murderer.

Pipeline in Millcreek repeats. You know, eskimos have 40 different words for snow. Today's type of snow is in the "moon sand play dough" type where you step on one side of the trail in it just WOMPS over to the other side. Seriously, I ran that trail FOUR times and each time it was just as much work as the first. It wouldn't pack down! The inevitable "every step is a stairmaster" feeling of winter has begun.

Pleasant morning and convo. Since my water bottles froze after 4 miles, I left my vest (and all food) in the car after the first lap. Bad idea. About 2-3 miles from the car my blood sugar crashed (what a surprise since I'd only eaten 150 cals during the run, and all of it had been 90+ mins earlier). First I was ravenous, which reminded me- peppermint joe joe's are back! ...and I was filled with all-consuming longing. Then I got confused. Then I realized Zac was uber far away from me and my mental abilities were crashing and I got really scared, I was having white rim flashbacks.... He finally waited for me. It went like this:

"I need a gel. Sugar. Please gel for me?" 

"You realize we're a half mile from the car."

"Sugar. Shaking. Sweating. Bad place. Gel?"

A gel and 5 mins later, well, I was still shaking but I wasn't sweating profusely and I'd returned to normal mental capacity (still limited, lol). Ugh. I was so angry for the rest of my morning. I know better. I've resolved to buy a case of gels and carry one with me at all times. It's embarassing to have friends carry an extra one whenever they run with me "just in case." (Thanks, for those that do...) I can't continue to pretend something isn't a problem when it's been an issue ever since I started ultra running.

Ran the Twins w/ the boys club. It was below zero, cold but fun. Brought some homemade gel to try out- too many BCAA's (I did it on accident when making it). Decent.

Wasn't sure I was going to make it- discovered late the night before the truck wouldn't start. Since Jacob and I had planned on carpooling, I thought, no biggie, he can just give me a ride. Then when he texted at 3am to bail because his power was out.... Hmm.... But luckily ScottW came to the rescue.

Ran w/Neasts, Beccy, and Ari. I was nervous since they're all fast roadie girls... but they went slow for me ;) Since it was supposed to be a whopping 20 degrees (as opposed to all the below 0 runs this week) I thought I'd take advantage and wear shorts. Didn't know about the wind.... Brrr. Legs got a bit chapped but it was alright. Don't know if it was from the wind or what, but didn't feel "warmed up" and "good" until about mile 11. Driving home was frightful.

I typed this all up and then the comp deleted it. Snuck in more flatter faster miles that are causing my usualy right shin injury to get cranky.

I remember going to bed tired, the last words out of my mouth--I'm going to regret not doing my squats today...

Gave up my lunch hour run to move furniture, a prerequisite for my husband's Christmas present. It was the only time my Dad could helpe me move stuff. Labor of love... giving up 1 of only 3 running opportunities for a week.

This was it. Today was the day. I had a kinda icky week, and with my husband out of town, this would be my only day to get in a "real run." I wanted vert, my body needed vert, so I was planning a double Wire then Twins and/or Ted depending on time.

Having never driven to SLC at 8:30am, I was disappointed that it took 30-40min longer than expected! Traffic was awful. I knew this would likely make it so I would only get 1 Wire, but comforted myself in easy BST miles after the summit. Then I started up Wire- what a slog! I was frustrated. The perfectly tracked out trail form the first mile was covered in drifts, and I ended up following deer tracks much of the way. I couldn't run or even power-hike. It took about an hour just to summit (instead of 40min) meaning each mile took 10mins longer than usual. I ran down and decided to head over to I street where I was going to meet ScottW.

I ran a quick mile and a half waiting for his phone call to end, then sat a bit, which was nice. We left wondering about time. ScottW was fascinated with the cougar tracks. Every now and then I'd catch a "Oh, no!" and I'd get worried wondering who was about to die only to discover it was a cougar track that he had just stepped on. Again. Ha. Lots of fun, we figured we wouldn't be able to hit Ted and, still wanting a summit, headed over to the Twins. I convinced Scott to run down Bobsled. He laughed as I slipped all over the berms and jumps. Then cried the whole way up the 1 mile of steep uphill pavement that bobsled adds on. I had time to eat a joe joe quick before picking my kids up from school (again with traffic, and I was 5 minutes late).

I had quite a bit less miles than I was hoping, but still ended up with over 5500 vert, which isn't bad for 16 miles...

Ended up working through lunch (when I had planned to run) and worked late, came home after 8pm exhausted and bummed that I missed one of my few opportunities to sneak a run in while the hubby's gone.

I announced at the end of the long day yesterday that I would be coming in late Friday. My co-workers all had sympathy... it'd been a long week for me and they could tell I was fading. So, I dropped the kids off at school and hit the JRP from 9400s golf course. The air was so thick and mucky I couldn't see a block away, my head tired from stress, and I nixed the idea of pushing hard. Too cold, didn't want to get cranky, and with mucky air... So I ran recovery (albeit faster than my usual recovery pace) just trying to do what felt good.

It was so pleasant to run, listening to the ducks, with no plans and no times. I debated running a few more miles but with the poor air quality decided it was a bad idea.

And, if I could explain the feeling of the run, it would sound like this song (skipping the first 20 sec):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E3znZoFnN8

Penguin Cafe Orchestra; Perpetuum Mobile. I could run to this song all day.