Trying to put in some easy miles, keep fit, but not aggravate my sore injured hip and foot/ankle. Varied success. A couple of these felt great, a couple hurt. The last, the full Grove-Battle Creeks loop was magnificent and actually felt pretty good during and after. Thankfully, I haven’t turned my ankle any more. Hopefully things are on the mend.
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.
Last night, as there was a mix of rain and snow falling, I decided to strap on my headlamp and go for a run up on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail from Davis Creek, south (blog post coming soon, perhaps). I figured that higher up on the trail, it would be snow and not rain. Thankfully, I was right. Just snow…and some crazy thick fog banks that the trail kept on climbing up into and then descending below, and then climbing back into. But, that isn’t the point of this post. The point, is my feet.
For the snow, I have a pair of Montrail Badrocks. They are UBER waterproof and have nice grippy soles and lugs. Not knowing how slick it would be, I strapped them on. I got them last winter and only put about 20 miles in them before being laid up with injuries for most of February and March – but I enjoyed how they felt on the snow.
In the interceding 9 months, however, I bought a pair of Altras (the Olympus), and then another pair (Lone Peak 2.0), and then another pair (Paradigm). With the big toe box, zero drop, and MAX cushioning (which is why I picked those specific models), I found that the shoes solved a lot of my prior injury problems. In other words, I completely converted to the brand.
So, last night was my first time running in non-Altras for about 9 months. They felt fine, but I could tell there wasn’t as much cushion. Then, I woke up this morning. Wow. The soles of my feet hurt way more than usual, my knee and hip-joints felt a bit more beat up, even my back hurt more. Was it the shoes? I suspect so. My body has grown accustomed to that max cushioning on the Altras. Well, lesson learned!
As for the snow – maybe I’ll take an old pair of Altra Lone Peak 1.0s that a friend gave me (hand-me-down) screw some 1/2 inch sheet rock screws in there and use them!
Last year on Pioneer Day, a friend and I tackled Baer Canyon. It was only my 2nd trail run, and we were unprepared and it was rough. I thought I would continue that and make an annual tradition of pushing myself to do unwise things on Pioneer Day. On the top of my trailrun to-do list has been to bag Thurston and Francis Peaks. I have been to both, but only after driving up to Francis and then running the Great Western Trail. I wanted to do it proper, climbing up from the valley floor. I put out the word and was joined by a few nice gents – Bryan, Jeremy, and Steve. Bryan had to turn back (work, or something) after the first hour of climbing, but Jeremy and Steve stuck it out to the end.
We started at 5:00 AM with headlamps, and I immediately fell behind the group on the climb out of the Fernwood Recreation Site in Layton. I don’t know what it was, but I just felt horrible. My stomach felt uneasy, and the climb really beat me up. When Brian turned back, I caught up to the other two and we stayed together for most of the remainder of the climb. We made it up the primary ascent, hit the delicious springs to refill our water along the traverse over to Chinscraper and then tackle that final climb up to the ridgeline.
As we neared Thurston Peak, we cut up a stream drainage where there was exposed rock and dirt to make an easier bushwhack up to the the peak. Its a bummer that someone hasn’t blazed a proper trail up to the top. Someone get on that. We enjoyed taking a rest, chugged some soda, ate, and then continued on south, back to the Great Western Trail.
Along here, I hit my stride on the GW, but after about an 1/2 mile got stopped in my tracks by simultaneous cramps in my right calf and thigh. Ouch. I had been careful to keep hydrated and intake calories, but I had completely forgotten to pop a salt capsule. I took two with water, rubbed them a bit, and then runned them out until they loosened while trying to catch up to Jeremy and Steve. They didn’t cause any more problems as I kept my electrolytes in balance.
I love this stretch of the Great Western – amazing views on both sides.
We took the steep road/trail up to the FAA towers on Francis Peak and stopped to refuel, take pictures, and plan our descent. Originally, I had planned on coming down the Francis Peak Trail, but had been convinced to take the Farmington Canyon Road down. This would put the mileage higher than I had planned, but I was excited about the prospect of hitting 20 miles – which would make it my longest run ever.
We started to scramble down the rocks just south of the peak marker to get back on the road when both Jeremy and Steve let out a sudden scream and help. Apparently, I had stepped right over (almost on) a large rattlesnake. As they followed me, they saw it slithering away, whereas I hadn’t even noticed it at all. After we got our nerves back, we got on the road and started down.
At this point, my left IT Band was starting to hurt, so I told them to go ahead while I stretched. I had about 8-9 miles of gravel road downhill ahead of me and I figured that with stretching the IT band might hurt, but would be manageable.
I caught up to them a mile or so down the road and continued my faster pace, moving ahead of them for another couple miles. Then, the blisters started. On the heal and arch of my right foot, two large blisters developed. This slowed me down and as we approached Skyline Dr. / Farmington Canyon Rd., they caught up to me. I was quickly realizing that this was going to be a much slower descent than I had planned so I wished them good luck and sent them on their way. So much for 8 minute miles the whole way down. Instead, I hobbled / limped / kind-of-ran / sometimes walked down to Sunset Campground and then took the Farmington Creek Trail down to its trailhead where my wife picked me up. It was really painful. Excruciating.
Jeremy and Steve took the road the whole way down, and my shortcut actually put me at the bottom ahead of them, even though my pace was slow.
In the end, I was exhausted and in a lot of pain but happy to have down 20 miles and to have bagged both Thurston and Francis Peaks. Though on speed PRs, a PR for distance and that was fun.
Ok, I have been seriously limping around AZ all week. That last run was a mistake. I should have taken it easy. But, I just could resist. Well…today was our last full day down here in the valley of the sun…so I thought I would throw caution to the wind and run again – suffer the consequences later.
I had my wife drop me off at the Pyramid Trail TH with the plan to meet up with her, my kids, and some of our cousins later as they hiked up to the Lost Ranch Mine Ruins for a picnic. I went up the Pyramid Trail to the top of that peak, and then followed the ridgeline NE to where it connects with Telegraph Pass – almost all the way to the radio towers, then lopped back SW on the opposing ridgeline to the north on the National Trail. I then dropped down the Lost Ranch Ruins Trail and arrived at the old ruined farmhouse right when the family did. Perfect timing! As with the last run, the conditions were amazing, and the trails were in great condition….except for the descent down the Lost Ranch Ruins Trail – that one was a mess. Super steep and lots of loose rock.
My foot hurt the whole time and BOTH of my IT bands were hurting from about mile 4 onward.
6.3 miles @ 13:16 min/mile and 1,710 ft. elevation
After eating, we took the kids up to a little abandoned mine and then made our way back to the cars…SLOWLY. Kids like to drag their feet.
Top of the Pyramid Trail, looking East
Kids exploring the mine
My boy showing off his muscles
One positive to having family in Arizona is visiting there for the holidays. My word – 60s-70s feel glorious. I have a problem though – my right foot is still quite painful. So – do I take advantage of the warm weather and trails, or be a good boy? I opted for the trails. Today I started at my sister’s house (on the south side of Phoenix’s South Mountain in Ahwatukee) and accessed the trail system there. I took a dirt road out of her neighborhood East to run the Southernmost ridge that runs WNW to ESE above her house. I took the Pyramid Trail up West to the Bursera trail and followed that along the ridge until it drops down the backside into a valley and connects with the Gila Trail. That loops around the far SE end of the ridge, where I followed a trail under the power lines back over to the backside of my sister’s neighborhood. It felt amazing to be running shirtless in the sun on new trails – Saguaro cactus all over the landscape. Just beautiful. Unfortunately, my IT Bands really started hurting on the descent down the backside side of the ridge at about mile 3.5. And, the foot pain didn’t go away. While running it actually didn’t hurt to bad, but whenever I slowed down to a walk – or when I climbed back in my car – it throbbed bad.
7.5 miles @ 12:03 and 1,083 ft. elevation
Top of Bursera Trail, looking SE towards Ahwatukee, Chandler, Tempe
Descending Bursera down to the Gila Trail, looking West towards the Gila River Reservation and Sierra Estrella
Ok, I did something to my ankle yesterday. The outside arch of my right foot KILLS! Stuff online suggests that it might be a pulled peroneal tendon – which wraps around that outside part of the foot. The ankle is sore a bit by the ankle bone – also where the tendon goes. In any case, I bet that running on the snow is what did it. It is not just an uneven surface (dirt and trails is always plenty uneven – and not a problem) but it is an uneven surface that unpredictably sinks or depresses under your footfall. It is hard to gauge what its going to do for every foot fall, so I wonder if the brain has a hard time tensing up the right muscles to prepare for impact. In any case – I’m totally limping.