East Mountain Wilderness Park – Professor on the Run

A few recent runs

September 23, 2014 professorontherun

Here are a few recent outings:

A run up the newly worked on lower stretch of the Farmington Creek Trail by Ryan Lauck, up the first section of the post-parking lot single track, and then looping across the creek to explore the Aqueduct Trail back – a first. All with a coworker, Spencer, who just moved here and is quickly getting hooked on the trails.

5.0 miles in 1:33:34 @ 18:44 min/mile and with 1,170 ft. elevation gain

Farmington Canyon + Old Aqueduct (1) — Farmington Canyon, Beautiful as Ever

Farmington Canyon + Old Aqueduct (2) — Spencer Surveying his Domain from the base of the Farmington Spine

A night run on pavement. Zzzz.

4.3 miles in 38:00 @ 8:53 min/mile and with 0 ft. elevation gain

A night run up Centerville Canyon. Bad idea to do in the dark. Rough trail, LOTS to trip on and having to stop a few times to figure out where the trail went. Slow.

3.1 miles in 47:04 @ 14:58 min/mile and with 952 ft. elevation gain

Centerville Canyon - Dewell Creek at night — These woods be creepy in the dark!

A repeat of the 7 mile out and back from East Mtn. Park in Kaysville to Fernwood in Layton on the BST. I ran it faster than ever, getting PRs on all of the segments and even negative splits. I felt great! In my head I was thinking it had to be way faster than last time, but looking at the previous post it was only 2 minutes faster overall. Oh well – I’ll take it!

7.2 miles in 1:17:39 @ 10:50 min/mile and with 835 ft. elevation gain

Adams Canyon BST — Autumn is popping in the hills, but still plenty of green on the BST – here coming out north of Adams Canyon

East Mtn. to Fernwood and Back

August 7, 2014 professorontherun

I so enjoyed the BST on my way to Adams Canyon and back on Monday that I decided to put in some more miles on it. It is about 3.6 miles from East Mountain Park in Kaysville to Fernwood Recreation Site in Layton. It isn’t the most exciting trail, view-wise, but it is a great place to clock miles. Lots of gentle ups and downs, and few shorter steep climbs and descents – but nothing too crazy. I have decided that my Altra Olympus shoes are great for this kind of trail – not to technical. I think this route may be a go-to for me when I want to clock some trail miles, rather than bagging peaks, stacking vert, or exploring UP canyons, etc… Close to home, relatively easy miles.

For the first 3 miles I was feeling sluggish – but on the way back felt great. This might be somewhat due to the fact that there is more climbing on the way there, but I think I generally feel best from about miles 4-8 on most runs. The first few miles are hard, and once my legs loosen up and I get in a rhythm, it feels better. Good splits for me towards the end. I would love to get all of my splits at 10:00 min/mile or lower. Maybe I’ll add this to regular rotation and try to drop my time each run.

I ran through sunset and flipped on my headlamp for the last 2 miles.

7.2 Miles in 1:19:47 @ 11:06 min/mile and with 905 ft. elevation gain

Adams Canyon Snake Scare

August 5, 2014 professorontherun

Last winter a lot of the local Davis County trail runners were trying to beat each others’ times up and down Adams Canyon. I never made it up there and figured today would be a good day. I unexpectedly found myself at home a bit earlier than usual, and swapped a couple afternoon hours of work for evening hours and went on a run instead.

5.9 miles in 1:15:24 @ 12:47 min/mile and with 1,581 ft. elevation gain

The Bonneville Shoreline Trail from East Mountain Park in Kaysville north was a lot of fun – there is some fun singletrack that I need to come back and bomb around on my mtn. bike. On my way up, I had sunglasses on, which dulls some of the colors on the trail. As I came up a climb (looking straight down) and opened up my gait to get moving again, I ran right over the biggest snake I have ever seen – I saw it mid-stride and hurdled right over. I circled back around and got this picture. No rattle – just a Gopher Snake. Over 3 ft. long!

The trail up to the waterfall was a bit more of a scramble towards the top than I thought, I don’t know how some of those guys posted such fast times coming down that thing.

Professor on the Run

The Trail-Running Autobiography of a History Professor Who Thought He Hated Running

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