Foothills Trail 24 Miler

The 33 mile Laurel Valley was scrapped due to time constraints so Weezy and myself decided to do a 24 mile out-n-back from Whitewater Falls on a little way past Burrell's Ford.  This section of trail is so beautiful & lush.  To the left is a picture two miles into the run as we climbed out of Whitewater up higher into the Foothills.  This was a tough climb and we went out fast & hard as usual arriving here in about 20 minutes.  There are two tempting benches that just beg you to have a seat and enjoy the vista.  Wayne didn't let them tempt me for long and we kept running.

The trail gives you another great view about 1/2 mile farther into the run...

We crested the summit of the first climb fairly fast.  In fact, I was shocked at how fast we made the climb.  My quads & calves were burning, but really felt great.  It almost always feels "good" & "right" to start out strong until later in the run.  I felt that I could cheat the "don't start out too fast" philosophy today because the run was shorter than a 50K.  It kinda worked.

Here is the profile map of the out-n-back section that we did.  We started from the right at Whitewater and turned back past Burrell's Ford...

The first five miles flew by fast.  I think we finished the first 5.5 miles in a little over an hour.  That is about my max speed on technical single track.  I never try to go that fast unless I'm trying to keep up with a speedster.

We were having a great day of running.  The weather was relatively cool for July in the low 80's and mostly overcast.  After a brief climb from HWY 107 we found our self with a 3 mile smooth downhill section to Burrell's Ford.  This was so much fun!

We reached Burrell's Ford and decided to run an extra .75 miles down to the river to check things out.  It was beautiful and is always worth the extra effort to visit.

Right after the photo-op, we ate a quick lunch snack and headed back out of Burrell's Ford.  WOW - this was a tough climb out.  You can see the climb heading back towards Whitewater from the river going left to right on the profile map.  This climb went on for ever and those 10 minute miles quickly turned into 17-18 minutes.  We pushed hard and kept pushing.  I started to feel like crap and was overheating. 

I have learned that when I overheat from pushing too hard the only way to feel better is to stop and cool down, but I didn't.  Just kept pushing.  I was choking down Ultra Fuel and Cherry gummies the whole time, but they didn't help much at all. 

We finally crested the climb and the trail was a little more forgiving to the end back at Whitewater.

We finished up back at the cars and I traded Weezy a Cherry Cola for a Chocolate Milk.  NICE!

We ended up running the 24ish miles in 6 hours which is excellent for me.  I felt great putting in a hard effort two weeks before the 77 mile Foothills Trail run.  I'm so thankful that I don't have to try and run that entire trail at that pace and have even more respect for the few that have completed it even faster than that.

Great day on the trails!

10 days until the Foothills Trail Run!!!