100 Mile Recovery: Eat Rabbit Food and Cookies

My recovery after a 100 miler always includes a week off of running. Not even a mile. I eat lots of healthy food. You know, the kind of stuff you would feed rabbits. I also eat way more than my share of junk food. I'm a cookie fiend. I figure my body worked hard. It deserves an ample supply of cookies. So in summary:

• No running.
• Eat rabbit food.
• Eat cookies.

So after the Hurricane Hundred a week ago I took a break from running. I ate lots of fruits and vegetables rabbit food, and ate chocolate chip cookies, cheesecake, pumpkin pie, and a hot fudge sundae. And by Saturday I was ready to run again. I had quite the awesome running partner with me on this one: my son Jackson.

Jackson is new to trail running so whenever he comes along with me I make sure to take him to the prettiest spots I know. This time I took him to one of my favorite spots. I'm not sure this particular route has a name but it is an offshoot of the JEM Trail in southern Utah.

It was pretty warm. (And by "pretty warm" I mean "ridiculously warm".) And it was pretty bright. (And by "pretty bright" I mean "ridiculously bright".)

We laughed. We talked about the baseball playoffs. And soccer. And the Utah Jazz. Jackson said "Wow, to be a trail runner you have to be good at parkour!" 

The scenery around here is just so amazing. These are the views you see on the course of the Zion 100.

We saw one surprise guest:

Jackson likes to take pictures too and snapped these ones which I thought turned out awesome.

I don't take this stuff for granted. I fully realize how incredibly fortunate I am to live in such a beautiful area. And I'm fortunate to spend time with my family doing stuff like this. I have a lot to be thankful for. I couldn't count how many times I've run here and it never, ever gets old.