Quarry Trail 5.6 Miles of Blizzardy Goodness

  After I cleaned the house Izzy said I could go play. So I went target shooting with my CZ .22 Long Rifle till my fingers were numb and I ran out of ammo.  Then drove to LCC to run up the Quarry Trail. Driving on the freeway was quite blizzardly so I was unsure how the conditions would be. My goal was to beat Spence's Fireblade 52:04 he ran the other day.  With the conditions such, I figured I would just try to make it to the top through the snow. Surprisingly, I found the trail to be runnable.  I hit the gate at the top in 31 minutes and flew down for a finish time of 48:25.  I absolutely loved the conditions, 5 inches of soft snowy goodness to cushion the flight.  My watch only showed 5.4 total miles and the sign said 5.6... not sure why.  

Splits went 10:13, 12:09, 10:50, 6:23, 6:35 and 2:16 change.   1090 Vertical Gain.

Most shots in the black. Hard to shoot straight with a numb finger and snow flying in your face. Sweet gun.

Motivation I wrote on my hand the day before

Conditions. Virgin Snow

Las Hokas + Snow= Cloud Running

 

Monarch of the Wasatch

summitpost pic I was too busy slogging through snow and mud to care about pics

Thought I would get one more trail summit in before the snow hits.  Ben Lomond has a great 14.6 mile trail that I have been itching to time trial on.  Started run at 3:20 p.m. The first few miles I was stoked that I was able to keep running non-stop all the uphill.... then I hit the mud and snow, and more mud and snow. My mile pace slowed drastically.  By the summit I was post holing through so much crust my ankles began to bleed.  At that point the game changed to make it to the top, not speed. I topped out in 1:53 hrs.  No goats to behold, but enjoyed 60 seconds of an awesome sunset.  Then more heinous post holing off the summit then slogged for miles through slush and mud. Of course I forgot my headlamp and pounded the last 4 miles in the pitch pitch dark. Good confidence builder to finish despite the poor conditions; night running with no light is a great test of mountain instincts. Finished in around 3:20 hrs, didn't really care at that point just glad to be done. Overall great run, but should have done it 3 weeks ago. Fox in Headlights, Wendy's Frosty, Home, Steak, NPR election coverage, bed..

summitpost pic