October Running

 

Women's Runs:

Our first Women's Run of October was on my birthday! We went to New Sweden Farms and ran through the corn maze. My awesome friends had a little birthday party all set up for me. Amanda had decorated her land cruiser, and she even brought Wallace in a cute party hat. 😊 Fun times!

Birthday clebration!

Trying to find our way out of the maze.

I sure love my runner ladies!

This is how happy I am every Monday night for the Women's Runs.

The next Monday night we ran around Tautphaus Park so Amanda could finish that route for her Lost Souls Challenge. After our run, we went across the street to the U Pick Red Barn Pumpkin Patch. It was decorated so cute. 

Tautphaus Park

U Pick Red Barn

We had 'The Great Pumpkin Run' at Sandy Downs. Amanda had gone early and hid small pumpkins all around the sand dunes. We found them as we ran. She also had some big pumpkins at the base of the sand hill, and we did hill runs while holding them. Trust me, it's WAY harder than it sounds. Fun Fun!

Stacy wore her Halloween costume because she was going to miss the Halloween run the following week. 

Hunting for pumpkins!

I love this picture!

Hill runs with pumpkins!

I ended up having to miss the Halloween costume run! 😢 It's one of my favorite runs of the whole year. I ended up with stupid covid, and I was still on my ten day quarantine. I felt fine, but I couldn't be around people and spread the love.

IFTR Group Runs:

Dan's been gone to Utah harvesting pumpkins on his family's farm, so the early morning group runs have been a little different. It's been hit or miss. Someone usually steps in and organizes a group.

Cloward's Road
Margaret-Eli-Ginger-Tricia

Eagle Pass Road
Margaret-Ginger-Eli-Tricia-Jenn

I also did some early morning runs at Freeman Park, but we didn't take pictures.

Greenbelt:

Mark, Jenn, Charles, and I did a 13 miler around the greenbelt. We started in the dark, but when the sun came up, the sky put on quite a show for us.

Snake River Landing

Tricia & Mark

Dirt Road Running:

I've spent the month trying to run lots of dirt roads. It's been good for me to be able to practice more consistent running, and less walking. The hills are gradual enough that I can run the whole way, but still enough elevation to give me a good challenge. I'm hoping this kind of training will help me a lot for the Dead Horse Ultra. Although the dirt roads aren't as exciting as the mountains, Idaho has not disappointed in the sunset department.

Mark and I did Trail Hollow one evening. The first 4 miles were watching this spectacular sunset, and the last 4 miles were in the pitch dark. I love this picture so much. You can see Mark running in the distance.

Some of my dirt road runs have been for my early morning runs, so all we see is dark. Steph did Kepp's Road with me one evening, and we got another great sunset.

Cotton candy sky.

This was at the very end of our run.

We stopped at the top of Sunnyside Road on our drive home to take this picture. 

My training had been going awesome, and then I got covid while we were in Southern Utah. I thought it was just a minor cold, and I still ran/hiked 48 miles with it. My symptoms were not even as bad as a typical cold. I know not everyone is that fortunate, but that's how it has been for me and most of the people I know who have had it. I still took about a week off of running, just to make sure I would be back to 100% before my big race rolled around. I feel like it has thrown me off mentally. I know I week off isn't going to make or break me, but I feel like it was at a crucial time. Once I was back to running it was time to taper down my mileage, so now I feel like I haven't done a long run in forever. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not feeling as confident about my 50 miler as I was at the beginning of October. Wish me luck, cause I'm sure I'll need it.

Mark also got covid, and his symptoms were quite mild as well, but he's feeling similar to me about his training. He is running a 50K at the same time I'm running the 50 miler. Here's to hoping we've done enough!