November Geocaching

I took Brayden out on another geocaching hike--this time further north around the Jordan River Trail. We found a total of 9 caches. These are some of the photos I took of our finds.







While down in AZ for Thanksgiving, I took some of the family out to the Power & Thomas area for a little geocache adventure.

On the way there. My dad in the back with my nieces.

My sister Amy was the first to find this one hidden inside a dead tree trunk.

My oldest sister Jenny holding a cache with Red Mountain in the background. My dad and 4 nieces also pictured.

Caching with Brayden

Sunny and warm out today. I took my little buddy Brayden out caching along the Jordan River. It was his first time, so I started with the basics. What is GPS? What are caches? Who hides them? How do you find them? What's inside? Etc.

I had loaded 6 caches within walking distance of his house. Despite some tough hides, we managed to find all 6 of them. He loved it.

No Stock Micro

Get Smart

This was a tough one. There were two decoy caches with clues to the real one. Brayden's holding the 2nd decoy.

Bridge on the River Jordan

Your Flies Down

True Grit

The toughest find of the day. We searched every blade of grass in the area looking for this one. Just as we were about to give up, I brushed away some grass on the ground and discovered a green lid at dirt level. The cache was hidden in a sprinkler box below the ground. In reading the cache log, it took some people returning 3 different times with hints in order to find it. We lucked out.

Something Special

An ammo box off the beaten path.

If you're ever in town and want to go caching, give me a ring.

Riverton Half Marathon

Up at 7:30. Slept ok, although I did wake up several times in the night. Had a granola bar and Gatorade for breakfast. 33 degrees outside, but it was clear, so I went with shorts and a t-shirt. Drove up to Riverton for their Half Marathon. Picked up my bib and goodie bag. They had a nice technical race shirt. It’s a trend that I appreciate. Those old cotton t-shirts were terrible.

Did a short warm-up, but my knees were hurting, so I figured what’s the point. Stripped off my jacket and pants in the car while I waited for the race to start. Ran into Blaine at the starting line. Managed to get my watch and iPod going at the start siren. I had no race plans… just run at a comfortable pace and hope my knees didn’t hurt very much.

I started off quick, as usual, and pretty much stayed in about 30th place most of the way. I kept a fairly consistent pace. Thankfully, my knees didn’t give me trouble until after the race. Then they throbbed like crazy. I was glad I didn’t wear extra clothes, because the sun was out and it warmed up quickly. There were quite a few hills too, including some really steep ones.

Mile 1 6:59
Mile 2 7:14
Mile 3 7:00
Mile 4 7:23
Mile 5 7:17
Mile 6 7:15
Mile 7 7:26
Mile 8 7:21
Mile 9 7:46 (Not tired, but my legs are fatiguing)
Mile 10 7:42
Mile 11 7:49
Mile 12 7:25
Mile 13 7:05
.05 Miles 6:00

This was the only picture I could find of myself online. I'm walking through the chute on the far left.

I finished in 1:36 flat. My average pace was 7:21. I would have been 10 minutes faster if this were a downhill course like Hobble Creek. I burned 1454 calories, but didn’t eat anything during the run. I had a few gulps of Gatorade though. Competition was tough. I came in 30th overall, 27th in Men, and 8th in my 35-39 age group. 398 finishers total. No trophies for me today. All runners received a finishers medal though. I’ve never medaled in any distance over a 10K.

They had free massages after, so I went directly there. The lady worked on my legs for a long time, which I appreciated. There wasn’t much she could do for my knees, but it felt good. Ate a smoothie and bagel with cream cheese before heading home. They put on a nice race.

International Caching in Utah

On my run today I replaced one of my caches that some kids had destroyed, checked on another one that people have had trouble finding, and then came across a big group of cachers who had just found my Windmill Tree cache. I've really enjoyed hiding these caches and seeing other people find them.

Back on March 28th, Windmill Tree was found by this group:

Not the everyday folk you normally see on the Jordan River Trail. Very cool. Here is the post they left on my cache page:

The 3rd cache in a team building activity for an engineering team from a local company.
10 team members in all from many different places: Idaho, Utah, Singapore, Burma, India, China, Malaysia and Nepal.
A good time was had by all.