Professor on the Run

Every winter I start pounding out more pavement miles because I’m too lazy to run the snowy or muddy trails and every winter I get overuse injuries. So far so good this winter! I have mixed in some treadmill with some street runs, culminating with an accidental 1/2 marathon. I have only done a 1/2 on pavement once before. This time, I was planning to run from the mouth of Provo Canyon up to Nunn’s Park and back – about 6 miles. When I got to Nunn’s I was feeling good and figured I should head another 1/2 mile up to Bridal Veil Falls to see it. It had been warm, the Provo River was surging so high, and I thought it might be fun to see. Once I got there, I figured I should probably just go all the way to Vivian Park so I could say I had done the full canyon trail up and down. When I got back to my car I was at 11.75 miles, so I figured I was ethically and morally obligated to run another 1.5 to make it a full 13.1 miles. I was a bit stiff by the end. A couple days later I did a 4 mile “recovery” run that started sore and ended great. The next morning all soreness was gone, so I am again converted to the recovery run idea for shaking out sore tight muscles.