With the family out of town until late tonight, I swapped some morning hours for running and shifted work hours to late evening. With sore feet (strained muscles or bruised on the bottom of my right foot and extensor tendonitis on the top of my left foot) I haven’t been putting in miles. It has been killing me. I put on my old Altra Olympuses and laced them different to minimize pressure on the top of my left foot and decided to explore up Rock Canyon in Provo.  7.5 miles and about 2,800 ft. elevation gain in the first 3.8 miles up!

I hiked here some as a college student, but that was almost 15 years ago. I forgot how dramatic the canyon walls are. Just gorgeous. I also forgot that the first 2 miles of “trail” are pavement and then loose scree gravel. Boo.

Once I took the Sq*** Peak trail turnoff the trail improved, but got steeper. Thankfully I was in the trees and shade.

When the trail crested and started climbing the ridge to the peak, I was exposed to the sun but the temp was lower up at elevation and there was a breeze. Hallelujah. I climbed slow and stopped to chat with a few different runners for a while. I bombed down quite a bit faster.

The feet feel pretty good.