Lindon Crop Circles – Professor on the Run

Pushing PRs

November 24, 2018 professorontherun

I have lost a good amount of weight this year and on the trails I have noticed myself feeling stronger, getting faster, and breaking PRs. Here’s a few recent ones.

A few weeks ago I went out for a street run in the evening and accidentally got a 10k PR of 53:32.

This accidental PR made me curious, so the next week I went back out and tried to go faster. I did, clocking a 51:01 10k PR. I am really NOT a road runner – my fitness is so much more tuned to trails – so putting down mid 8:00 min/mile pace for miles on end is a real challenge. Or, it used to be. Again, with the weight dropped, I didn’t feel like maintaining this pace was as hard as it should be. I felt great!

A couple of days later I tried to crank out a flat 5k PR. My previous was 24:00 (last year’s Pima Turkey Trot) and I beat it by 30 seconds, coming in at 23:30 for a flat 5k. This one hurt a bit.

At this year’s Turkey Trot in Orem, I pushed again and shaved of 3 more seconds! Ha! 23:27 is my new flat 5k PR.

Curious about how this newfound strength would translate to trails, I have also recently picked a few old favorite routes and tried to bang them out faster than I have before.

I dropped about 7 minutes of my previous PR on the 10 mile out and back from the Indian Road Trailhead to Bridal Veil Falls.

I also redid a 6.6ish mile up the Lindon Squiggles / Crop Circles trails that I have done a few times. It felt so good. I cut 3 minutes off my previous PR. It felt great to clock 12-13 minute miles w/ ~300ft climbing per mile on the way up and then bomb the descent.

So . . . where should I go next? I have lots more old trail routes to revisit . . .

Snow Adventures

December 30, 2016 professorontherun

Snow has arrived (finally!) in Utah. I have only ventured out a few times, but it has been pretty great.

In mid-November my back tweaked again (see my nightmare injury from Summer 2015). I decided to test it out on the Lindon Squiggles and foothills below Dry Canyon. It started beautiful and ended with a whiteout. I knew a system was moving in, but figured I’d be ok not venturing too far from my car. It was fun to get first tracks in the snow and my Altra Lone Peak 3.0 Mid Neos worked great!

Snow moving towards me across the valley

A week or so later I ventured up Dry Canyon a bit – mistake. It was too tracked out and complete ice. Not wanting to descend the steep ice I cut up the Curly Springs trail Nr. 051 and came down the Squiggles. Much better on those back trails.

I hosted the 3rd annual Wasatch Mountain Wrangler Secret Wrangler Gift Exchange and someone was kind enough to hide a gift for me too. Like last year’s gifts, it took up new trails. Mill Creek, Pipeline Burch Hollow, towards Church Fork Peak. My childhood best fried was visiting and he joined me. The last pitch to the Church Fork ridge was a bit of a slow – he snowshoed up – but I didn’t put mine on until the ridge. We headed west a while, but didn’t trek all of the way to the peak. We were a bit short on time, and lazy. How beautiful though! AND, my new Christmas present Hillsound Ultra crampons were AMAZING. My Atlas snowshoes performed great too.

Where snow had melted off the rocks they were covered with lichen and plants.

Pleasantly mild day turned cold with a stiff wind on the ridge. Brr!

Looking down Burch Hollow into Mill Creek Canyon

Local Miles

August 9, 2016 professorontherun

I’ve said it before, but I really am pleased as punch with the easy access and quality of some of my backyard local trails. 3-5 minute drive to a trailhead and I can put in as few or as many easy miles as I want around the foothills. Add a canyon in for some elevation, or just putter around the Bonneville Shoreline Trail and countless offshoots. Here’s 3 recent ones.

I took another friend out for his first trailrun with me. Good times. I think he’ll get hooked.

I like this little 4.5 mile-ish route. Super close trailhead. A slow steady climb, a little squiggly descent, then back. Super fast and easy. For some reason, on this day, I decided to knock it out in the 102 degree hit midday, just to see if I could. I felt pretty good for the first mile, then the heat really started to sink in.

20160729_202339630_iOS — I should have turned around at the trailhead. Everything was dry, crunchy, burnt-out.

I went back and did the same route a week later, but at twilight. Faster, until it got dark and I had to pull out the flashlight.

Trying to Train Without Getting Injured

May 29, 2016 professorontherun

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.

20160523_203136152_iOS — Looking south towards Provo Peak. The grass up in the foothills is green-ing up and starting to grow!

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!

20160527_230459280_iOS — Just cresting up onto Chris Flat. This is a pretty sudden view. You are climbing steep through some aspens and then boom – you’re at the top. He said, “Wow – that was sudden!”

3 Cheers for Boring Local Trails

March 7, 2016 professorontherun

Barring catastrophic weather, bad falls, rolled ankles or other injuries, getting attacked by wild animals, etc., even the worst trail-run is still pretty great. The BST and squiggly wiggly trails above Orem/Lindon (especially between Dry Creek and Battle Creek) are kind of my treadmill. A little vert, a little technical single track, some flat sections to really open up and run. A bit of everything. The trails aren’t spectacular, although the sunsets, alpenglow, tall grass (in the Spring) are sometimes beautiful. Not too flashy, somewhat. Venturing up the canyons cranks up the beauty level, but when time is short I usually stick around the less-spectacular foothills.

They are especially plain this time of year, mostly dirty brown. The trails are in rough shape following the snow melts, lots of new rocks in the trail, rutted up from bikes and horses and runners going in the mud, etc.

Even so – it is still a balm for my soul. I can feel the itch if I don’t get out for a while. After 4-5 days with no dirt, I start to get really antsy. So, having these trail heads 5 minutes from my house is saving me.

Here’s to boring, but wonderful, local trails!
3 Cheers!

I saw at least 50-75 deer. Some could have been repeats as the trail doubled back on itself multiple times. I may have just been spooking the same group, then re-spooking them again later. In any case, more deer droppings that dirt almost. Also – DEER STINK!

Some of the Lindoln Squiggles. I need to take my Mt. Bike down those trails.

Night Run + First Rattler of the Season

September 23, 2015 professorontherun

A nice headlamp run up the Lindon Squiggles.

I made it about 30 minutes without the headlamp, but once I got up into some small stands of trees it got pitch dark. I forgot how creepy it can be up there.

Then, as I crossed the parking lot at Dry Canyon, a guy warned me about a rattler he heard near the trailhead. Sure enough, there it was in the middle of the trail. It was my first sighting this season.

More Summer Shenanigans

September 4, 2015 professorontherun

Thankfully, the back pain from last month did not return and I was able to fit in a number of runs and hikes (not listed here, but on Strava) during the remainder of August.

I ran a bigger version of the squiggly wiggly. Lots of fun.

Some HOT BST action:

An awesome morning run up Grove Creek to Chris Flats. Bagged my first Mountain Goat sighting.

He just sat on the ledge above the trail watching me, curious.

I even ran some pavement. Possibly the first time this year! Actually, it was kind of exhilarating to click off miles at a faster pace than I’m used to, but it was painful.

Plus, some nice blister pains during an attempted Big Baldy Summit. Woot woot.

Some Slow and Easy Rehab Runs

August 18, 2015 professorontherun

With muscle relaxants doing their work, I was advised to try some easy slow runs. The Dr. didn’t have to ask me twice!

Thursday I hit the some Orem/Lindon BST. It was great to get out and move, but I did it in the heat of the day and the temps really got to me!

Feeling good, I tried a new place on Friday – up Provo Canyon and to Big Springs, on the backside of the Cascade Ridge. I went up the Big Springs / Shingle Mills Trail and down the Big Springs Hollow Trail.

I picked the east side of the mtns in hopes of finding some more afternoon shade. Oops. The first mile was out in the open sun! A nice breeze kept me a lot cooler than the day before.

Looking up the canyon towards Big Spring

Monday night I tried out some twisty mtn. bike trails above Lindon. It was a BLAST! Between all the twists and turns, there was a lot of flattish runnable terrain. I will definitely add this loop to my regular rotation.

Professor on the Run

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

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