While my last excursion to Washington state was entirely vacation oriented, this trip to Salt Lake was a work obligation with a mini-vacation stuck on the front end. While I needed to attend a conference on Monday, we left the Thursday afternoon before arriving in SLC around 10pm and picked up our car and got to the week’s AirBnb by midnight.
On the plane we had been talking and realized we were getting in late, compounded by the time change (two hours difference), we elected to take Friday as an off day, sleep in, go get breakfast and supply up the accommodations, with additional time to explore the surroundings. That would be great but never having been one for sleeping in, we were at the breakfast place by 7:15 and then walked over to the grocery store for supplies. All within a half mile of the AirBnb, we were back home by 8:30 trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our day.
Having passed a sign for the Salt Lake Running Company on the way in the night before I checked to see where it was in SLC. Conveniently it was just over a mile away so we put that on the agenda and looked for more things to do. Scrolling through the internet I ran across something in Provo, which reminded me it was next door to American Fork which just so happened to be the home of one of the best high school teams in the country year to year. Not only are they among the best but FloTrack went to video one of their workouts about ten years ago and the workout which was videoed was what they call the “Grinder”.
The Grinder is a 1.3 mile uphill challenge which AF uses to not only condition athletes, but they have a metric that if it can be run in under 9 minutes, then you are a 17 minute 3 miler at altitude. Coincidently, if you can run it in under 8 minutes, it’s anticipated you can run sub 15:30 on their States course, sub 15 at sea level.
Having seen this workout back then and being duly impressed, I set out to find my own Grinder in our town so I could use it not just for conditioning purposes, but the psychological benefits as well. While not quite the same, ours’ has less elevation, but is dirt and tends to get rutted up from heavy rains, making things tough to maintain cadence and speed. We’ve used this now for about ten years and over this time we’ve also added it to our Valhalla summer running repertoire, running it weekly on Mondays over eight weeks in the summer. Much like AF, if a kid runs under 8 minutes (or 10 minutes for girls) they get a shirt. Our adults get a bit of a break, as we have a graduated goal time that changes by a minute for every ten year age bracket, beginning after 40.
And I thought ours was pretty equivalent. But I was about to find out differently. I passed the idea by my wife that we go down to AF, find the Grinder and give it a go ourselves. I remember I had done some research a while back and thought I had figured out which road it was run on. After hopping back on YouTube and a check on that Workout Wednesday along with a little google maps sleuthing, we had the coordinates and were on our way.
We parked at Grovecrest Elementary, just up from the start of the Grinder at the corner of 100 East and 1100 North. The temperature was 84 degrees, ensuring whatever we did the run was going to be tough. Gretch took the point and I tried to settle into a comfortable pace I could hold the entire way. Traffic was low and there was plenty of room on the shoulder to not run on the sidewalk (concrete) but not be a road hazard either. I was on my way.
It wasn’t far into the run that both the incline and the effect of the hotness and dryness kicked in. Within a few minutes it felt like I was breathing in fire, and even though I was working, I really didn’t seem to be sweating much. As I grinded northward and upward, the pace became not easy and every minute the difficulty seemed to get ratcheted up. As you looked ahead to what seemed to be a leveling of the road surface, you were only met with a sharper pitch once you got there. I kept looking at the watch only to see I had made incremental gains in distance. I was holding on at this point.
When the traffic island identifying the finish finally came into view, I put my head down, pulled out my phone to video and simply quickened my crawl to get the torture over with. With my last few steps I took some really deep breaths hoping to start the recovery process as quickly as possible. Running it seventeen and a half minutes, 10 minutes slower than Casey Klinger of AF/ BYU fame did as a high schooler I was a little bit shy of the 9 minute/17 minute 5K goal pace. After a brief respite in the shade of a tree, we headed back down the way we had come up.
And that’s really when you recognize the severity of slope. It was hard to run slow but too steep to go fast. Not that I didn’t before but I’ll have to give credit to the AF boys, this is quite a workout. Ours still works for what it’s worth, but this is an entirely different ball of wax. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and taking in some great food.
The next day we had decided on a suggestion from a friend of ours from NH gave us in Mount Granduer peak, via the east trail. With the temperatures slated to be hot we got a reasonably early start and were at the trailhead by 9am. Already packed we parked roadside, hoofing it in an additional quarter mile to the start of the hike. Steep from the get go, I was waiting for things to flatten out so I could start my run. Nels had suggested that the trail “may be runnable” which makes me wonder what Nels knows or is it “Nels no’s”, but either way there was not one uphill running step taken from the bottom to the top.
However what was done was the taking in of some incredible views over the 2400 feet of elevation we got from this 3 mile hike. Not only were the down canyon views incredible, once at the top you had sights over to Park City and the entire expanse of Salt Lake City itself to the north. While it wasn’t quite alpine, we did climb out of the fir forests below and into the scrub alpine region with lots of wildflowers and dramatic views. Topping out at just under 8,300 feet helps explain my lack of breath from start to finish as I’ve never responded well to altitude.
We lingered at the top for a short time, took some pictures, and then began the descent. I wasn’t sure how much I would be running, as it was a fair amount technical and I really couldn’t afford to get hurt and still have to get down the trail. I quickly got into a sort of trot-run, carefully picking my way through the rocks, roots and shrubbery that encompassed the trail near the top. There was more dirt and flattish section below, the truly runnable stuff, so it was important towards the top to stay upright so you could run the stuff fun to run. We carefully worked our way down, rock hopping, side stepping and trying not to get sweat in the eyes as navigation was critical in staying on the trail.
We cut over 30 minutes off our ascent time, mostly on the flatter sections as the steep stuff had us slowed to almost a walk. By this time I was out of water, out of gas, and practically out of give a sh*t as the heat of the day, the exertion and the dehydration had taken a toll on my legs. Towards the bottom we came across Mill Creek, the namesake of the road we came in on, and stopped to dip my hat in the stream to cool my head. Finding some of the features familiar I was happy to almost have this excursion in the books. Finally out, we returned to the car, which had been baking in the sun, and turned the air conditioning on high.
We relaxed most of the afternoon with plans for dinner just over half a mile in walking distance. Even with temperatures in the mid 90s, we decided to do so, to help get some of the stiffness out of the legs. We took the long way back, searching for shade along the way and just checking out the neighborhood as tomorrow’s run was planned for a city park known to be a magnet for runners and weekend training.
The morning showed the effort from yesterday along with the quads getting hammered on the downhill meant for cranky legs. We got out there before the sun really got intense, but for me things simply weren’t clicking. Both knees were sore, my achilles was pretty jacked, making my gait awkward and stiff. I worked my way out to Sugar House park, much like Towne Lake park in Irving, TX and pulled off into the shade of a big pear while Gretchen circumnavigated the park. While grassy and treed, most of the park was open to the beating sun, and with my wonky legs I sustained from the day before, I was content to wait for her return and the run back to the AirBnb. Once she completed the circuit, she was feeling the same so we walked back, doing a little on foot sightseeing we had been avoiding due to the heat. Already sweaty, we didn’t need to worry about getting all gross as we were already there.
The rest of the week I was in conference, so I was only able to get out in the mornings for a very brief neighborhood run as the sun came up. While not comparatively rememberable, it was still kind of neat exploring neighborhoods you’ve not explored before. Additionally, I greeted a lot more runners than at home because there were a lot more runners than at home.
Again, hobbled by aching knees and faulty achilles, my adventures are now as different as SLC is to NH. Not better, not worse, but different. In choosing to find the best parts opens the door for new and different experiences, ones previously overlooked by a busily training, effort specific game plan that might not allow for exploring. And while it’s taken a significant mind shift, I’m happy to report I’m truly enjoying this new viewpoint. Call it perspective.
I’ll see you out there.
