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| View from road |
The other day my family and I decided to invite some of our running partners to come train with us up in Guardsman Pass. We met at the avalanche gate and our run began there. The hard thing about this run is you don't get any warm up, it is straight up and it is at about 8000 feet. We slowly begin our gradual climb and are glad we didn't dress too warm, because the sun is beating down on us. I push ahead of the pack and find myself sweating up a storm as I reach the top. I quickly unzip my jacket and take off my gloves and set them on the snow bank for my dad to pick up when he comes along. While I was doing this my mom and her friend powered ahead of me and were already around the next bend when I started to run again. I ran and ran but I knew I had a long ways to go so I slowed down my pace and followed the trail through the mountains. I stop a few minutes later for a second to take a few pictures of the mountains, it was just so beautiful I couldn't pass up the opportunity!
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| Road we ran on |
I quickly start up again so I don't get to far behind, and catch up to them quickly as they near the turn around. We all stop to look around and talk for a few moments, then we are back and running steady to meet up with my dad and my mom's friends husband. I stop to put my camera away and they power ahead as usual, so I hurry and run to get in front of them and proceed to make distance between me and them until I reach the hill. I am slower on the hill so they pass me, as I reach the top I see my dad skiing towards us, and I tell him we will meet him at the car. So down the hill I go relying on my Katoola Micro-Spikes to keep me safe from falling. Countless snowmobiles pass me as I make my descent and I wonder why would they be on those when they could run? But oh well, not that many people are crazy enough to do what we are doing so I drop that thought. I clearly see our finishing point and I take off as fast as I can because I don't want my mom and her friend to beat me. I fly around them and I touch the gate and I feel a sense of accomplishment! But to my surprise I find out that we are running through Deer Valley and will meet the others at Jans the local ski shop. We take off our yaktraxs/microspikes and continue down the hill at record speed! My mom thought it was just an easy downhill so we are ripping down the hill at a very fast 6 minute mile until we see a dreadful hill! We are a shocked that we can keep our pace up the hill but we do, but not without some hard breathing! My mom decides to keep this pace even though we have awhile to go so we are straining to keep up with her! We nearly are to the bottom when I realize we are going faster and faster each minute! My mom's friend hints out that we are going a little to fast and maybe we should slow down, agreeing with her I take charge and pull in front and set a slower pace. We wind down the hill like this for awhile until my hip flexor starts bugging me and I pull off to run in the back. That's when we see the rest of the group waiting for us in their cars on a side road and we thankfully pull off to stop our run a little short. When we check our watches we find out that we did 3 miles in 18 minutes! I am so happy because it is a new personal record for me and I can't wait to see if I could do that in a race!! Until next time!
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Posted By Trailrunner to
Nick's Trail Adventures at 1/25/2011 02:27:00 PM
