Utah Big Baldy Traverse Training Run - August 2

Got up this morning not sure what exactly I was going to do. I was supposed to go to work today and Friday then head to Colorado on Saturday, but the calendar was mixed up and I had to cover for a developer who will be off for the next 10 days, so I ended up off today to make up for the extra time.

I went to bed thinking I might do either Timp or Baldy. This morning Baldy won, and based on some trail runners the last time I was up with Dallin, I decided to try the traverse. I would hike up Battle Creek, to the top of Big Baldy, then down Dry Canyon and at the trailhead go North over the forks of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail back to Battle Creek.



I had no idea what that would be like on the Dry Canyon or Bonneville section, since I hadn't been on the Dry Canyon Trail without snow, having only been on it for my March attempt at the Everest Ridge of Timp. I usually run on the BST North of Battle Creek, so it would be all new for me.

This is from the Google Earth Elevation Profile, showing how it panned out. Notice how steep it is on the descent of Dry Canyon.

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This image is from my Polar watch software, showing a slightly different view, based on time rather than miles.

Here's a view from the lap splits, based on grade and elevation. It doesn't show the elevation accurately, as I did not sync the altitude for the area and it guessed a few hundred feet wrong. Notice that coming down from Big Baldy to the base of Dry Canyon is really steep. Really steep.

In the Polar graph, you can see my heart rate going up and my speed going down at the same time. I really wasn't prepared for how slow it would be going down that steep trench trail at Dry Canyon, and I ran out of water as the day heated up to over 80 degrees. There's no water at any of these trailheads (with a name like Dry Canyon what do you expect?) and I had two quarts of extra in the car. I pushed for the car and ended up doing a fair amount of walking as the Bonneville connectors wove in and out of neighborhoods and private land, and eventually came out at the car.

I chugged the two quarts and weighed when I got home. Down 5 lb - if you include the 4 lb from the water I drank, I was down 9 lb when I hit the car. They'd pull you from some Ultra's for that.

Bottom line stats: nearly 4400' up and down, in 11 miles, in 3:50. Not great, but pretty good considering I don't train much in Utah right now, and it was pretty hot. Not sure, but this implies I won't be happy at a trail marathon right now.