I love dirt!

Today I ran out on Antelope Island.  Katherine and I had planned to go, and were going to meet up with a girl named Lindsay that I've met several times out on the island.  Katherine's sitter didn't work out, which was a bummer, so I headed up this morning by myself.  

The causeway

I arrived at about 8am, half an hour before I was supposed to meet Lindsay, so I got in a couple miles.  This group of buffalo was right near the trail and I ended up turning around because the buffalo that appeared to be the leader kept eyeballing me and I wasn't really interested in being trampled.

Love that morning sunshine!

I met up with Lindsay and her husband Ryan, who ran with us for a bit.

Luckily nearly all the snow has melted since last week and the trails were nearly all dirt and very runnable!

We did the race course loop, which is nice coming up to race day to have that under my belt again.

See that white speck in the distance, just above the trail?  That's an antelope.

I had my first trail tumble.  I went down pretty hard and banged both my knees, one wrist, one elbow and one hip.  Luckily this was my only real injury.  I was able to hop up and run right away, and should be as good as new in a couple days.

The feeling of a good, hard run completed!  Ahhh!

It was wonderful to run with Lindsay who has run the Buffalo Run and many other ultras.  She gave me lots of advice and was a fun running buddy.  I'm so very excited that race day is less than two weeks away and feel more than ready to tackle this beast!

17.75 miles

4 hr 12 min

14:11 pace

I ran today without auto pause on my watch and this time included plenty of stops, falls and otherwise.  At this pace I should finish the race in about seven hours.  Even if I run at a slightly faster pace, or just run more of the hills, I won't finish much faster than seven hours.  Fine by me, more hours to enjoy the race!