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.