For the past couple weeks I have been thinking a lot about putting in smart miles rather than just lots of miles. Lots of miles usually just get me injured, plus I don’t have lots of time, so I’m trying to be strategic (and have even added biking to work once a week or so into the mix as a way to work on muscle strengthening and endurance without stressing my joints). Here’s some recent doings.

Two of them were deliberate attempts to put in smart miles.

On May 16, some quick miles to loosen up sore muscles after that Big Baldy madness.

Then, on May 23, I went up the crop circles trails above Lindon with the specific plan to work on slow climbing. This is a trail that has a nice long, but gradual, climb, then a downhill to complete a loop. I wanted to work on transitioning from aggressively power hiking climbs to slowly running them. I did the loop, then did it backwards, then went up and down the BST a bit. It felt great. I will add this on occasions to get some climbing in, but without the punishment of long downhills that sometimes stress my joints.

On May 20 and May 27 I took my next-door neighbor on his first two trail runs. He has been a hardcore hiker in the past (600 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, the entire Great Western Trail from Idaho to Arizona – the full length of Utah – twice) and puts in a lot of road miles. I convinced him to join me in the hills and I think I’m going to get him hooked!

The Dry Canyon -Altar/Rock Pile loop was great in the morning and things were looking so green!

Then, of course, taking him on the Grove Creek Battle Creek loop. Wow. It is so green up top!