Wednesday, September 28, 2011

22 Miles Of Bliss

In the wee hours of the morning yesterday I ran 22 miles @ 11:53 minutes per mile pace. I learned a valuable lesson. When you take your camera running, it doesn't work nearly as well if the battery is still at home on the wall charging. Fail. I had to just take pictures with the phone. Booo.

I had been running for hours before the sun came up. It is slightly spooky to be out in the middle of the wilderness all by your lonesome. Gu packets make for terrible company. But running in cooler weather was pure heaven. I was thankful when the sun finally started coming up.


Later I saw some big muther paw prints in the dirt. I suppose they could be from a dog, but I don't think so because they were coming down from the mountain. I was so thankful that I didn't end up being breakfast for some animal. You can see how big the tracks were:


One of the wierder things I ever seen while running: an enormous pile of black feathers scattered everywhere. It looked like a flock of birds had swallowed fire crackers. But there was no sign of any dead birds. Just feathers everywhere. This is only a part of the carnage. Strange.


I was surprised how good I felt during the whole run. The cooler temps made such a huge difference in covering the 22 miles. Since the St. George Marathon is coming up in a few days I made sure to take it very easy and went slow enough that I never felt out of breath. I felt like I could run forever.


Finally, the coolest part of the whole day. I ran past a butterfly that was just sitting on the trail. I stopped and took a few pictures. I came by the same place about 30 minutes later and it was still there! I stuck my finger out and it crawled right on. It was the perfect ending to a great run.

12 comments:

  1. WOW! That butterfly picture is AMAZING! Honestly incredible. And you took these with your phone?! So happy you had an amazing run! I am thankful for the cooler temperatures as well. You always have such awesome running stories :)

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  2. All of your runs are adventures! :) 22 miles a couple days before the marathon, you are awesome!

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  3. You're the man! It sounds like you had no trouble running 22. I think I would struggle the whole way. I'm not sure if I'm ready for this marathon thing.

    I'm glad you weren't breakfast for that beast that was nearby. It's a good thing the birds were around for a feast instead of you! Nice pic of the butterfly.

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  4. What a cool run with nature!!! That paw print would have had me concerned. Those feathers were just kind of creepy...I wonder what happened??

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  5. That's so awesome! And YOU are awesome. "I think I'll just run 22 miles because I'm going to be running a marathon in 3 days. No big deal." I love love love the butterfly picture. I was also afraid of getting eaten by a mountain lion on my solo run in the dark last night. I started clapping and yelling so as to warn them away. I guess it worked :S

    I bet that mountain lion ate those birds.

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  6. your pics are still incredible despite being phone pics! plus your runs are always so so so adventurous! you see the coolest things! amazing run! see you soon!

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  7. You are amazing and I like how running 22 miles has become "no big deal" to you. I am jealous. Maybe someday I will get to that point.

    Love the pictures!

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  8. Bird carnage and giant paw prints??? Where are you running???? IKES! :)

    Great job with the long run though. be careful!

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  9. That butterfly picture on your finger is AWESOME!!! And your phone camera takes some great pictures! I would be totally one to leave my battery at home charging, too. Haha. Sweet job on the 22!!!!

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  10. Wait a second. Didn't you just run a marathon??? lol You are a nut! In a good way :)

    The firecracker thing cracked me up. We have paw prints like that here too...hard to tell if that was recent, eh?

    Happy running to you!!

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  11. Cory...I'm an admirer of your St. George Marathon poster too...but was just wondering if you have ever run the Grand Canyon??? we did Rim2Rim (North to South) this last week end...my husband has done it 16 times through the years and our 6 kids have done it varying times...saw a rattlesnake a few years ago on the Grand Canyon trail...check it out here: http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7515281134235761662&postID=5599525609383672926
    just wanting to share our beautiful ARIZONA with someone who would appreciate it...check it out ahead of time because when the snow comes the North Rim closes...
    BRING YOUR CAMERA!!!!!

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