Running Downhill

Yesterday Morning I ran my longest training run before my next Half Marathon. Twelve Miles. I'll be running the AF Canyon Run Against Cancer Half Marathon. It's a completely downhill race, I'm really excited about that since I run much faster when I run downhill, I have high hopes to get a new personal record! But running downhill also works different muscles than running uphill or even on flat surfaces and so I decided to do a couple of mostly downhill training runs. Two weeks ago mapped out a course that started near the top of the Traverse Mountains (the east west range that marks the boundary line between Salt Lake County and Utah County) and I ran home, that was a 9 mile run. It was great. This week I decided to do it again only this time I added a 2.5 mile loop around Sun Crest, the community at the top of the mountain, I added an extra half mile to the end of the run for a total of 12 miles. It was an awesome run. 

A few weeks ago I lost my music player. This is sad. I enjoy listening to music while I run. I don't have your typical play list, I don't go for the pounding beat, I actually listen to pretty mellow music. Josh Groban, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, so I don't rely on the music to push me harder or help me keep going. I've had enough experience with forgetting to charge my music players that I am pretty comfortable running without music. When that happens I usually just enjoy the view, pray and think and I usually find those runs quite enjoyable and enlightening. 

As I prepared to go to sleep on Friday night I remembered seeing something on our phone that said FM Radio. So I checked it out, and sure enough, our phone has FM Radio, who would have thought! And so on Saturday I ran with some music BUT I still enjoyed the view AND because the phone has a camera I decided to show you the view too. 

So the first 1.5 miles of my run was actually up hill. It was hard, but as I rounded a corner at the .35 mile mark this is what I saw. This is looking south into the Utah Valley.

At mile 1.5 I started headed back downhill (12% down grade according to a sign for trucks) the picture below shows the view of the Salt Lake Valley from this point.

At mile 4 I was about half way down the mountain and had a different view of Utah Valley and Utah Lake.

At mile 7 I hit the flatter part of the run and made a turn from running south to running west, towards home. The picture bellow is my view from my water stop at mile 10.

And finally, I made it home, Mile 12. It took 2 hours and 2 minutes, which for me is an awesome pace. If I can keep that pace during my race I will most definitely get a new personal best. I'm really excited to see if I can do it. 

Thanks for running with me. It was fun to have you along. Maybe we can run together again sometime.