Week 7 - Saturday

It was great having yesterday off, but I was hoping my legs would spring back better than they did by this morning. They still felt a little dead when I met Trever, Loren, Brent, Paul, Ryan, Trina, Kerry, and Mark at Fort Boise at 7am. We planned to run a 12 miler on Rocky Canyon road for those getting ready for Robie in a couple weeks.

The light was already pretty good as we left the Fort Boise parking lot and started up Shaw Mountain road. Paul, looking for a weight advantage, jettisoned his water bottle within a hundred yards of the parking lot, but Ryan made him take it back.

I felt better than I expected as we made our way up the first hill. We haven't been doing a lot of hill work this winter, so those that we have done have been challenging. We crested Shaw and started downhill into the canyon on Rocky Canyon road. Once in the canyon, the road rolled with some modest inclines and declines until we reached the end of the pavement. I was in a small pack with Brent, Loren and Mark for most of this stretch, with Ryan out ahead. From there, we continued uphill along the all-too-familiar road and some of us commented about being glad not to be doing Robie this year. In exactly one hour, I reached our 6 mile turnaround point, which fortunately was about 2 miles shy of the summit and the worst of the climb, and started back downhill the way we came. Ryan was a good half mile ahead of us at this point.

The downhill gave us a cardio break, but immediately started pounding my quads and knees. Loren, Brent, Mark, and I made good time on the way down to the east trail head for Shane's trail. That morning, I had suggested taking that route down rather than facing the pavement pounding and traffic on Shaw, so the four of us started up the hill, and Paul, who was flat hauling ass caught up to us as we then turned south onto Central Ridge trail. We followed this southwesterly and then turned downhill on Ridgecrest trail. We quickly descended Ridgecrest's switchbacks and then passed the Toll Road junction and continued to Eagle Crest trail. This meant ascending one last hill, which although short, was brutal at this stage of the run. After cresting the hill, we reached pavement again and quickly descended back to the Fort Boise parking lot. Upon reaching the lot, I was surprised to see some of the others there ahead of us. I knew Ryan was back well ahead of me, but thought we had a few behind the five us who had turned at Shane's trail together. Our alternate route added an extra .75 miles, and worse, an extra hill, so some of the crew opted to retrace our original route. In addition, "Shortcut" admitted to turning when Trina passed him on the way down, shaving .6 miles off his run (I'm keeping a log, like Ryan's "I'm never late" log). All of this gave me a chance to talk a little smack.

All in all, a good run of nearly 13 miles, but the downhill gave me a couple of blisters to deal with for the next couple of days.