A Week Later

It has now been a full week since I finished my first race of the season. I have been extremely happy with my recovery. For a race that took so much out of me I healed quicker than ever. By Monday the soreness was gone and I just had residual fatigue in several muscle groups. By Wednesday even the tiredness was gone.

I had committed to taking the entire week off, but come on, if I really did that would I be me? Of course not. On Thursday I went out in the morning with my friend Scott for a quick peak-bagging jaunt up Wire Peak, a small 'hill' nestled between Emigration Canyon and the University of Utah. It is a short 4.1 mile roundtrip hike/run with 2100 feet of vert in the first half of the trip. My legs were obviously tired going up, but by the time we were half way to the summit I had settled in and was feeling fine. And the run down was casual and easy. I was happy overall with how well it went. That being said, the fatigue from Monday and Tuesday was back in my legs and I spent the rest of the day lethargic, but content.

I had been talking with another friend, Eric, about doing a longer run in the foothills of Mt Timpanogos on Saturday. But with the weather forecasts showing the best temps and sunshine on Friday, we decided to head out then. He wanted to try a new loop starting at Battle Canyon in Pleasant Grove, then run up to a connecting trail over to trail 51 and then follow that past Dry Canyon and up and over the western saddle below Big Baldy Peak to the Pipeline Rd in Provo Canyon. We'd then run the Bonneville Shoreline Trail back to our car.

Well, the trail went as planned, but my legs did not. The tiredness stopped me from pushing the uphills as much as I would have liked. The snow depth and mud slowed down the rest of the trip on the upper trails. There were times when we were hiking across thick snow crust, just to break through and scrape our shins. Once back to the BST, with only 4 miles left, all of my energy (and gels) ran out and it was a brutal slog to get back to the car. I had to walk the uphills, but could run the flats and downhill pretty fast still. Even with all of that it was an amazing and beautiful run and I was very content with how I performed. We had more than 1800 ft of vert over the entire 12.33 mile run. My only regret was not taking a camera. It was really stunning.

Map of the run.