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Opera and I hiked with our dogs up to Dog Lake from Millcreek Canyon. It was tons of fun, the dogs were out in full force last night as it seemed every other person we passed wanted to take advantage of the gate being open. 

On a sad note, when on the way down I felt a twing behind my knee in my leg and have experienced seemingly mild pain at random ever since. I think I will get out for a run tonight, hopefully I just need to warm it up and stretch it out and the pain will disapear as quickly as it appeared. 

Another beautiful run in the evening with the dog. We went down into the gully, it was rainy and perfect. I cleaned my shoes off by chasing the dog around in my backyard afterward. Awesome night. Awesome!!

Opera and I decided to do the Sandy City 5k to start out our Independence Day Celebrations. We started out really strong then Opera started getting a side stitch. I tried to push her to run through it but to no avail. She started walking, and I did some ridiculous looking high step slow jog to try embarass her into running again but, alas, the pain was too great. This same pain would plague her the whole run. We started into a cycle of running and walking (I made the appearance of running the whole time by jogging slowly next to her). The side pain just never went away for her but I tried to push opera as best I could. 

In the end she came in just behind be but there was a pretty significant back log of people at the finish line so we stood together in line and her time was 2 seconds faster than mine. It does say unofficial time but it is still funny. We had a lot of fun and I Opera could be a really strong runner if she wanted to put some time in. I don't know if she wants to. :)

It was a fun event, great to see so many people getting out and waking up early to do some running with their 4th of July. I hope everyone has a great weekend and holiday.

Today was HOOOOOTTTTTT!!

I have been running in the morning so much I was just not prepared for the heat. Crazy! I started really strong and thought I was going to make super good time. Around mile 4 I hit the preverbial wall. The heat was just getting to me. I didn't bring any water and my mouth was super dry. I ended up walking for 3 minutes killing my time and then was able to finish out the run at a pretty slow pace. I mowed the lawn before the run, that may have robbed me of my water and energy a little too.

I am just glad I got out there.

A long beautiful mountain run this morning. The weather was awesome, the views were inspiring and the downhill was pounding! What a great morning!

Thanks Scott and Jun for joining me for the run. If I wasn't so tired I would be excited to do that one again soon. Instead I am excited to do it again in a while. 

Pipeline up Millcreek Canyon. Another beautiful morning. Maybe someone can explain to me the thrill in running up Millcreek Canyon on the road? Seems absolutely scary and silly to me. Why when you have such nice and maintained trails would you choose to run up the road with cars and road cyclists? The female contingent that was doing this insanity was very friendly, very friendly indeed. 

Another tuesday mountain bike night is comming as well. We are going to ride up to dog lake from the top parking lot of Millcreek Canyon if anyone wants to let their running shoes take a break. Meeting at 6.

Ran the Battle at Big Springs, from the Cascadia Trail Race Series. It was a great race. I had a lot of fun. My goal for this race was once again to average less than a 10 minute/mile pace. I was not able to get it once again. The hills were not very steep but super long. The long hills just wore me out my legs were burning after about the second mile and there was still about a mile of steady climbing. Next year I will have to push myself a little harder.

Part of my difficulties was probably the fact that I hardly ran at all this week. And another factor may be that I have the most terrible diet. I don't expect my diet will change significantly though. I enjoy many terrible foods and deserts way too much to stop eating them.

I will wait for next year and hopefully blow away all my goals for this year. My plan is to do this by running "uphill" on the treadmill this winter. I figure the more hills I can conquer the easier a race like this will be.

Decided to actually train for running a little. Today I did 5 minute easy warm up. Then I did 15 minutes of intervals. 2 fast minutes followed by a easy run minute. After the intervals I worked on "hills". I raised the incline of the treadmill 1 degree for every minute up to 5 and back down. Then I finished out the session with a steady run. Total time was 45 minutes. The incline on the treadmill hurt me. I need to do it more often. 

It is time for me to start thinking about Hobble Creek Half so I am going to be doing more road running. I need to get out early though. I went at about 10am and it felt good to start but quickly warmed beyond my liking. The run itself was good. I did a new route. It had some pretty long stiff hills in it. I ended up walking more than I would have liked. My legs sure did feel a burn though. My lungs also felt good. I am going to be trying to push the distance on the roads a little this week and maybe run a half marathon distance on Saturday depending on how I feel.

I and the dog went for a run. The dog was worthless. I was hoping to get about 4 miles but the dog found a shady spot with some water and refused to go any further. I let him cool off for about 5 minutes while I stretched. Then I had to drag him out, when he noticed we were headed home though he was better about moving. I don't think he will be going running with me much in this heat. I even brought a water bottle just for him.