Ok I have made it one week now with no cigarettes and i’m doing pretty good, my stress is a bit high but livable. So I was having trouble deciding to run or ride today so I waited till it was cool long about 7:00 pm and took Sam up to big springs. I had loaded the bike and my plan was to get up there and make my choice. It was sprinkling on the way up so I was thinking running would be the way to go but when I got up there it was nice and dry. So I pulled out the bike and set it up and got ready to roll.

There was a lot of people up there today, strange for the mid of the week, a few people putting there bikes together. I knew if I rode the 8k loop clockwise I wouldn’t see a person till around Big Springs. I haven’t been on the bike in over a week now and I could feel it on the dirt road up to the first big meadow. It was feeling pretty sticky and I stopped to check my tire pressure, they are about 5 pounds low but I let them go. It seemed to take me about 20 minutes to get into the peddle. I slipped out on the first little single track I climbed.

I got through the top gate and decided to take the climb up and over instead of taking the easy way down the road. I made it up over the climb without touching the ground and started to feel better, the downhill to the next meadow was a nice fast drop. Sam was doing her thing along the way chasing things but not killing them I hope! Before I knew it I was hitting the last uphill to Big Springs and I had already passed another female rider that I had seen at the base and was working my way past a large group of scattered hikers. I hit the top and dropped around to the campground and finished the loop and was heading down when I ran into the hikers again. The trail was full all the way down so I had to be careful and not hit anyone.

At the bottom I decided to take  a ride back up and cut across to the big meadow I had started with this added on about another 25 minutes putting me out just as the light was going down.

It’s not very often I play the lazy card but that is exactly what I did on day 6 of my smoke free life. Normally I would have taken a ride or a run just to set things right in my head. I about did around 7:45 pm last night, I was looking at the time and trying to decide if I should drive up to Big Springs and do the loop or go out to Lambert Park and take a ride. In the end I decided to just take a day off and work on a website I was needing to get updated, if you want to check my work here is the url http://avanacansing.info.

It has been a few months since I have done nothing and I was feeling a little guilty at first but guilt is not really my thing so I got over it. So today I’m trying to plan out where i’m going to go ride or run, I need to take a ride it has been over a week since my last ride. I really have been enjoying the runs so much that I have taken my bike out of the car and put it away. I’m thinking of giving it a bath and getting it dirty for today, or maybe I will just run?

What to do?

Day 5 of my smoke free endeavor started off a little slow and sore, the rain came in around 4:00 pm and gave a fresh sent to the air. Long about 7:30 pm I decided to get to Big Springs Hollow and run a 8k loop, still plenty sore from the 14 mile trip to the summit of Timpanogos the day before. What better way to deal with the pain than to push it out with more pain, yea I know but seems to work in my head. I got to the parking lot about 8:00 and knew I had about 1 hour 20 minutes till dark and I wasn’t carrying a light this time so I needed to get around the loop before the lights went out.

My lungs are recovering very well now that I haven’t smoked in 5 days and I stay very active every day I can. The ground was wet from the rain and there was a few sprinkles coming down as I cleared the first big meadow and about 2 minutes ahead of my normal time. Right away I have noticed I have better lung power going on, I don’t seem to be struggling to get air as bad as I did even just 4 days ago.

I got over the hill scramble and started down into the next meadow where there was a bunch of deer grazing and watching Sam and I very closely, just in case we got hungry. I toped out over the wood bridges of the springs in about 42 minutes and was heading down to the campground at the top when it started to rain. There were tow people kissing in the rain on the bridge at the camp site as I crossed it, scaring the hell out of them, sorry about that! The trip down only took me about 14 minutes, I was running as fast as I could to get out of the rain but at the same time it felt so good and cool.

I hit the bottom at about 1 hour 2 minutes and the rain stopped, great run in the rain!

Day 4 and still smoke free and did a summit up Mount Timpanogos with Bubby and Sam, took us about 8.5 hours with no trail running….bummer!

On the way I did get some great photos of the Big Horn Sheep that live up there. What I have heard is they weren’t always there but brought in from Wyoming or maybe it was Montana but my point is they really don’t belong there, the ones on Nebo are gray not white like theses.

Mount Timpanogos is the second highest mountain in Utah’s Wasatch Range (second to Mount Nebo). Timpanogos rises to an elevation of 11,749 feet (3,582 m) above sea level in the Uinta National Forest (now part of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest). With 5,269 feet of topographic prominence, Timpanogos is the 47th-most prominent mountain in the contiguous United States.

The mountain towers over Utah Valley, including the cities of Lehi, Provo, Orem, Pleasant Grove, American Fork, Lindon and others. The exposed portion of the mountain is made up entirely of limestone and dolomite from the Pennsylvanian period, and is about 300 million years old. Heavy winter snowfall is characteristic of this portion of the Wasatch Range, and avalanche activity is common in winter and spring.

The word Timpanogos comes from the Timpanogots Ute tribe who lived in the surrounding valleys from A.D. 1400. The name translates as rock (tumpi-), and water mouth or canyon (panogos).

Photos taken on 7-25-2010 on Timpanogos Summit trail from the Timpooneke side.

Mount Timpanogos is the second highest mountain in Utah’s Wasatch Range (second to Mount Nebo). Timpanogos rises to an elevation of 11,749 feet (3,582 m) above sea level in the Uinta National Forest (now part of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest). With 5,269 feet of topographic prominence, Timpanogos is the 47th-most prominent mountain in the contiguous United States.

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