Sunshine!

Got back from my paradise last night... had a fantastic trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon, started with the first night snowing on us, we made a snowman to verify how much snow there was! A bit chilly the first couple days, but great kayaking. overall for the week I did one sort of trails run about 25 min., the trails are not to good for running on the river! I did do 2 good steep hikes that felt good, one morning I woke up early and went up a ridge, ended up climbing over 2000 vertical ft, my goal was to get up to 6000 elevation, i started just below 4000, I made it and then had a steep descent that beat the quads up! The weather ended up being perfect upper 60's to mid 70's for the last few days and no rain or snow!

Looking forward to getting worked in the WBR! Swamp Donkeys get ready to Ride!

Got out for a good run at lunch, did the Strong Cyn. Loop W/ the Beus add on... It was HOT! but it felt good to run, went for 52min. and stopped three times at the streams to cool off!

7 Hot miles on the bench today, I did my Mt Ogden Park loop run with a couple extensions, felt pretty good, but kept it easy and cooled off in the stream a few times, ran for a total of 63 min.. I have a 10:20 soccer game tonight, and I may take tomorrow off of running to be fresh for WBR!

The Swamp Donkey's rode high at the WBR, great start to the race, i went up with Nick, Nick and Shane to Logan, we had a start time of 3pm which being an ultra team ( 6 man) I was a bit worried about the late start, but we proved ourselves well! N. Fischer got us off to a great, right off the start there we noticed another 6 man team that was going to be tough... they noticed us also and the race was on! Nick F. built a 3:40 lead on the first guy and then N. Froerer took over and stayed steady with their next guy till the last hill leading up to Avon and he picked up a quick minute to 4:40... then Shane took over and he had a battle their guy was tough climbing and closed the gap to about 100 yds at the top, but then Shanes motor kicked in and he opened it back up to nearly 4min.... Then I took over at the Liberty Park, i actually talked to the guy I was up against and found out there team was a group of teachers/track coaches from S. Dakota... I took off knowing this guy was going to be hunting me down, and that he did, he closed the gap but I pushed it hard thanks to updates from the crew and held him off, he never passed me but the lead shrunk to a few seconds, the positive from this is that I pushed it very hard and ended up averaging on a pretty rolling section just under 7 min/mile! I was happy with this but knew my next 2 legs could be tough holding this guy off. We picked up John Lewis and Bg at this point and John bolted out of the starting gate and built another big lead on his guy, he averaged 6:20ish or better for his leg and built a 5 minute lead only to see it disappear on Snowbasin, they had a climbing ringer who reeled BG in and gained 1:30ish on him, with a sick feeling N Fischer who spent the better part of the afternoon in the bathroom, up next we were worried, well not to fear Fischer jumped on it and reeled their guy in and extended our lead to nearly 5 min., N Froerer ran well and maintained and gained a bit on his guy, same as Shane! I will finish report on Saturdays page based off it now being Saturday when I ran next!

Cont. from Friday... I started my 2nd leg a 10.9 mile run from E. Canyon down to past Henefer... wasn't sure what the start had in store but I knew there was some cruising downhill going down to Henefer... I felt very good right from the start and got in a good nighttime groove, hit some hills and then a 2 part steep hill, and then the downhill came and an update that the #202 team had closed the gap to under 4's, I got a bit mad to myself and started rolling down the downhill I felt very very good, I have no idea what pace or how long but for a few miles it was fun, it was one of those floaty feelings! the finish to this dragged on a bit but it was good tough one! I extended the lead to I think 6:30. I ended up averaging 7:20's over the 10.9, I handed off to John and he took off and extended our lead to 16 min. and really that was the end to the #202 team we didn't see them much more after that if at all, we put them away, and it felt good!

from here on everyone was tired for there 3rd legs but everyone did great, my 3rd leg was 10.1 miles it went from Heber up to Wasatch Golf Course and I was tired it was all I could do to keep moving, at times it felt like I was doing 10 min. miles, I finally made it and handed off, I ended up averaging 8:20's which for how I felt I was happy with... The Swamp Donkeys finished strong we ended up sub 24 hrs at 23:30, and took 2nd in the Ultra groups. Overall it was a great time and it sounds like we are already planning on next years Ultra Team!