More Peaks! More Waterfalls!

2014 is more than halfway gone! 

Crazy!

This is also crazy. Crazy AMAZING!

This has been a great year!

One thing I'm obsessed with for the rest of the summer is Peaks. I mean, yeah, I also have a little race to prepare in 6 weeks, but it's only ONE HUNDRED MILES!?!?!

But summitting a mountain... THAT's awesome!

There are SO MANY I haven't yet reached or even attempted the summit!

THAT WILL CHANGE!!!

But this year has been awesome for peak bagging - and I've hit quite a few.

Of course lots of pictures were taken - so here are some of those, starting from the most recent... and there are a bunch missing because I don't want this to be THAT big of an entry.

Hidden Peak: (The ski-warming hut at the top of the peak looks like a nice Doctors office, eh?)

Pfiefferhorn: SO amazing - I want to do all the peaks along this ridge they are amazing!

Sunset Peak:

Grandview Peak:

Lone Peak: The beast of the Wasatch Front Range - I was nearing the summit when I got a text from my beautiful wife Kakes who BROKE HER ANKLE!!!

Gold Ridge: This gorgeous little peak is tucked right behind Bountiful Peak and overlooks Morgan and has a great view of the bowl behind Bountiful Peak!

Timpanogos: The Annual Wasatch Mountain Wranglers Timpependence Day Night run! Awesome to be up there with 60ish of my favorite trail runners!!

Ed's Peak:

Raymond:

Also like always I still love Waterfalls probably about as much as I love Peaks, so here's a few more waterfalls I've visited recently:

I took my three older kids on an adventure to the Farmington Canyon Waterfall - and their courage made me very happy as a father!

And Adams is always a fun waterfall:

Looks like I need more peaks and waterfalls!!

Check the Rim 2 Rim 2 Rim OFF the list!!

I finally made it down to the Grand Canyon.

After I was picked up and we drove to pick up the 4th member of our group, I looked at them and realized - I was the lone human in the midst of 3 lawyers!

We promptly got stuck in a traffic jam at the almost-always-horrible Point of the Mountain.

In Beaver Utah we stopped at the Crazy Cow Cafe to use the restroom and try the infamous "DFO"

Yup.

Deep Fried Oreos.

I'm not sure that's the smartest thing to be doing before attempting a double crossing of the Grand Canyon, but luckily I didn't seem to have any stomach issues because of it!

We made it to the North Rim about 9:45 pm and were changed and ready to go right after 10!

We headed down and Phil took off ahead. He was aiming for a PR and a sub 12 hour double-cross. Fast!

Trekking down the canyon late at night is a unique, surreal experience.

A steep and rutted trail illuminated only by your headlamp. Endless cliffs towering above you on the one side and blackness everywhere else.

It is a little disconcerting to have bats swooping down at your face every couple of minutes... But after a while you get used to it and then enjoy it.

On the way up the Bright Angel Trail we were alerted that a Bighorn Ram was not too much farther ahead - WOW it was majestic.

Bighorn Sheep

We stayed at the South Rim for almost 2 hours waiting for one of our group to feel better.

Not much else needs to be said. The Grand Canyon is HOT. There are beautiful vistas everywhere.

Here are pictures and my video!

Sunrise at South Rim

And then it was back down!
Don't mess with the squirrels - you could get the plague!

WARNING! Do Not Attempt to hike from the canyon rim to the river and back in one day!! Okay, I'll just do 4 times that much...  (seriously though - be prepared!)

Beautiful Canyon

Bright Angel Trail:

The Colorado River is huge. This picture might not look that big - but consider those tiny things on the far shore are about 40 people about to load onto rafts. Huge.

Wheelbarrow Surfing

North Rim Done - 17.5 hours:

I'm finally writing this post and being quite lazy about it after a month mostly because I finally finished the Video, which shows the journey very well:



What an amazing trip! I do hope to do it again - AFTER I've checked off some other things from the list.

Things like the Zion Train, Lone Peak, etc.

Steve likes to do it every year - maybe I'll go next year. We'll see. Definitely want to see Ribbon Falls again!

Strava Activity - Last 7 miles cuz my watch died. Total would be about 49 crazy miles!!

Fine then. Here are more pictures:

Overdue Snow Video and Animated Gifs!

I finally finished my New Years day run video... It was warmer that day than it was YESTERDAY! Crazy.

Tons of crusty snow to chew up our ankles that day - hope you enjoy it!



The other night I took my gopro with me on a run and followed the example of my bro-in-law.

Set the gopro on a 2 second interval timer and run by!

Lots of great pictures like these:

In some cases I think the 1 second interval would be better...

I also uploaded them to Google +, which has a cool feature of putting together similar pictures into a gif.

Everybody loves animated gifs!!

My favorite is the one where I move a tree...

How To Be An Ultra Runner and 2014 Biometrics

Let's start off with the most awesome video EVER MADE!!! (from trailandultrarunning.com)



SO Much fun to make that.

Okay so it's again time to update my Biometrics!

I've included the past 2 years for comparison, it's interesting to see how things change. With a family/genetic history of heart disease - I think it is important that I stay aware of what is happening with me and try to do what I can through diet, exercise, and overall lifestyle to completely avoid problems!

• September 2012 Results 
• Blood Pressure: 117/65
• Total Cholesterol:213
• HDL: 44
  
• Triglycerides:125
• LDL: 144
• Glucose: 100
• Heart Rate: 59 beats/minute

• May 2013 Results
• Blood Pressure: 119/63
• Total Cholesterol:209
• HDL: 50
  
• Triglycerides:112
• LDL: 137
• Glucose: 94
• Heart Rate: 68 beats/minute

• April 2014 Results  (Today!)
• Blood Pressure: 129/74
• Total Cholesterol:203
• HDL: 50
  
• Triglycerides: 89
• Cholesterol Ratio: 4.1
• LDL: 135
• Glucose: 85
• Heart Rate: 46 beats/minute (!)
• BF %: 11.9%

Blood pressure has gone up some... but so has my caffeine intake due to the increased running! I also think the practice of taking BP after poking the finger in a painful spot doesn't help! I may try to retake my blood pressure sometime in the next few weeks to check that out. Other than that, I'm happy with the direction things are going, ESPECIALLY glucose and Triglycerides! Both well below 100. Nice. I added the cholesterol ratio and the Body Fat percentage. Body Fat was taken holding a thing with sensors like you see on treadmills for heart rate. They are often inaccurate. I am fine with that BF%, but I might be +/- 2 %. Someday I'll have to do the BodPod or a water displacement bodyfat measurement!

Okay. That's that. Now to figure out what race I'm paying for next.

I'm looking to improve so I'll be trying some new things!



The NEXT race I'm doing is the BoSho Marathon - a bandit fun run 10 days from now! Should be fun, and it will be the first time actually shooting for Marathon distance as a goal!