Emigration Canyon Downhill Training + IRunUtah 5k 11.28.14

Our fearless leader of the Run Aways, Joshua, organized a 10 mile run two days after the Thankful 13 half marathon.  For some odd reason, and I'm claiming insanity here, I RSVP'ed to run 10 miles down Emigration Canyon.  To top if all off, IRunUtah put on a charity 5K around Liberty Park, which I somehow talked Heather into doing all that with me!

 The sky was in flames with the sunrise kissing the clouds! And the wind was howling.

Borrowed from my friend, Robert

 

from my apartment

We met near the tennis courts at Liberty Park at 7:30am.

Everyone split up into their mileage groups: 6, 8, and 10 miles.  Heather and I headed up to the summit of Emigration Canyon with the 10 mile group.

The wind showed us no justice up there, nor did the cold!  We didn't waste too much time before heading down to Liberty Park.  Jonathan, Monte, Robert, Louise, London and Barb took off!  Heather and I lagged behind, just taking our time and enjoying the course.

Besides, running downhill hurts!!!!! Surprisingly, since running those trails recently, these downhills weren't too bad at all!

Once we got around the "zag" part of the mountain, the wind died down a bit.  We were grateful for that.  But once we hit mile 6 it picked up again... and it was fierce!  We walked a bit through the wind because it made it really difficult to breathe.  And our knees and feet needed a bit of a break from the crown in the road we had to run through (my left foot is a tad tender). 

It was so nice to see the mouth of the canyon.  Once we hit that point, we knew we only had about 3-4 miles left to go.  We ran down 800 South down to Liberty Park.  The steep downhill at 1100 East was a bit painful, but we did a little gallop to take the weight off our feet.  We filled up with water at the Artesian well on 500 S and then headed into Liberty Park.

As we got there, we registered for the IRunUtah charity 5k.  We got to finally meet our fellow Run Aways family member, Carl, there too!

Carl, Heather, and me

The loops around Liberty Park were a bit painful after having already run 11 miles down the canyon, but we finished!  The miles were very, very slow, but we got them done ... and earned a fun medal for it too!  So we ended up logging in 14.11 miles today, when we only planned on doing 13.1!  Insane, I tell ya!  But so fun, and totally worth it!  Thanks for running with me today, Heather!