ultrarunningmom

Yes, I’d love one. Hit the trails this morning for my run, literally. Spongebunny and J$ met me at 530 a.m. and we drove to East Mountain Park, which is the starting line for the Wasatch 100 mile endurance race (my dream race).

Thursdays are hill training days, and the Bonneville Shoreline Trail has lots of short steep hills. Most days I do long steady climbs for my hill training because that is what I encounter most often during my races. But it’s good to mix it up.

We reached the trailhead and it was dark. The sun had not even begun to shoot its rays high enough to reach the crest of the mountains. The trail begins as a dirt road before it climbs and narrows into single track.

We climbed through washed out rutted trail. The trees and scrub oak hemming us in. Our glutes and quads starting to burn as we reached the top of the hill. The trail winds down into a small canyon and then climbs again. It flattens out for a while and gives you an amazing look out over Davis County and Antelope island.

The trail climbs a little and the trees move in as you reach Adams Canyon and race down the narrowing trail toward the rumbling of Holmes Creek. This is my favorite part of the trail. The pine trees bend to out away from the steep slope of the mountain and stretch toward the sun. The smell of the wet trail, the stream, and the pine is invigorating. The wood of the bridge sounds hollow as we clomp over it one by one and climb back out of Adams Canyon.

Again, we get a little reprieve of semi-flat trail while we gaze out toward Ogden City in the north and the Great Salt Lake to the west before we plunge into another canyon and rock hop across Snow Creek.

As we reached Kays Creek and Fernwood park, the sun was high enough to click off the headlamps. We stop for a quick water break and then start another climb. The trail winds up through the trees and behind the huge houses stuck to the side of the mountain.

Quick single track cascades along the southern edge of Hobbs Canyon. The sound of Hobbs Creek rolling over its rocks on journey into the valley makes me smile. I love trail running. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a dance of joy and freedom that reaches into the very center of my heart.

We turn around once we reached the bridge at Hobbs Creek. This section of the trail is phenomenal in the autumn when the leaves are changing colors. I’ll have to go and take pictures for all of you in six weeks or so.

“It’s easier going back,” I said to Spongebunny.

“Okay,” he said a little out of breath.  Okay in Spongebunny talk means Holy Shit this is hard, but I will never in my life admit that to the Dark Voodoo Princess (aka me).

J$, eats hills for breakfast, two servings, so he led on the way back. About two miles from the trailhead, I caught my toe on a root as we were descending and crashed to the ground. J$ turned around and asked, “Are you alright?”

I was on my feet before he finished the question. “Yep.” I brushed off the dirt, decided nothing was broken, and no bone was exposed. And we started off once again.

Spongebunny was a little behind and missed my acrobatics, which is a shame because the look on the hiker’s faces who were behind us was pretty good.

“They probably think I’m a total D-bag,” J$ said, laughing.

If you run trails, you’re going to fall at some point. Just like with the rest of life, you dust yourself off, assess the damage, and keep going.