The good times are killing me

The weekend started in earnest Friday evening at the Kahtoola Nightflight. The previous day I received a call from a friend telling me about this little running race from Solitude to Brighton on the Nordic track, where you had to use these specially designed neoprene boots for running in the snow. It sounded easy enough and a good reason to hang out in the mountains with the family for a couple of hours. The storm that rolled through that day had left us with a clear night cold temps. The race started at around 6:30pm and it was snot-freezing cold. There were a couple of Nordic racers running with us and I decided I would try to stay with them, big mistake. The low temperature had obviously froze my brain because I forgot I was at altitude with extra weight on my feet, breathing in the 0 degree air. I followed the two of them for about a mile before my legs decided that it wasn’t a good idea to go anaerobic in the current conditions. I hung on for 3rd place about 2 ½ minutes behind those guys. The cool part was that I won a pair of the Kahtoola Flight-boots I had just run in, the bummer part was that I had developed a rasp in my lungs from deep breathing the cold air. We finished off the evening with some great food and beverage from the Pub (Desert Edge Brewery).
Saturday morning seemed to come as quickly as I closed my eyes the night before. Peter and I decided to go run on Antelope Island in order to check out part of the Buffalo Run 50 miler and try to find some snow free dirt. We made it to the starting point shortly before 8am and took off at an easy pace. Even though it was a bit chilly to start at 23 degrees if felt great compared to the night before. The 50 mile route is fairly flat with a few rollers mixed in as it meanders along the east side of the island. One of the best attributes of the Mountain View trail that we were running on is just that, spectacular views of the Wasatch front from North Ogden to Draper.

We saw plenty of bison and heard some young coyotes learning how to tune their voices. We reached the turnaround point at the Fielding Garr ranch in less than two hours and it became evident as we headed back north that we would have a tailwind on the way back. This made it a bit warmer and after about 3 hours I could feel the race from the night before. The last hour became a bit of a slog but we made it back to the car in just under 4 hours, which was our goal to start with. A quick stop at Crown Burger on the way home and everything started to feel better.

Sunday brought warmer temps, clear skies and another trip Big Cottonwood, except this time it was for some downhill skiing at Solitude with the family. It was a perfect bluebird day. In fact it was a bit to warm in the middle part of the afternoon but we managed to deal with it somehow…