Tag: hot

Sunday Summit- A Little Lost

Finally.

After 11 days off (stupid flu!!!) I finally got out there and did something!  I also made it to work on Thursday and Friday.   Wowza, Thursday was rough, I was exhausted.  No lie, I got through the day with a lot of Diet Coke.  But anyways, on to Sunday.IMG_8590

With the 25k 7 days away, eek, Sunday was my last day to get in a trail run/hike.   Plus I needed to test run my race day gear.  Because of the narrowness on the trails and the chance for ticks, I am wearing clothing that is a little more form-fitting than usual.   I also had a new hydration vest I needed to test.  The first one didn’t work out so well.    It didn’t fit right with water in the bladder and just didn’t feel like it was made well.  I replaced it with a new one a few weeks back but hadn’t been able to test it yet.  This one doesn’t have a bladder but has 2 water bottles in the front.  I stashed snacks in the back pocket and filled the bottles.   Success!  Well, except I haven’t figured out how to easily access my phone.  But I’ll work on that.  🙂IMG_8603

With me being sick and my mom being slightly hurt, we have readjusted our general time goal for the 25K.  Sunday, the plan was to head out to the race course and hike part of the last out and back.  According to the course map, that section is 8.4 miles.   We had troubles finding the right trail head but we were near another one that my mom had hiked before and really wanted to again.  The sign said it was 3 miles and it looked to be all fire road.   Fine by me, 6 easy miles was probably all I was up for anyways.IMG_8621 IMG_8626

It was freakishly warm!  High 70’s and I was burning up!   Being a fire road, the trail was easy but I was still coughing a bit.   The trail ends near a worn down, beat up, old barn.  It was equal parts creepy and cool.    So of course we had to take a few pictures right?  IMG_8634When we headed back, we passed a tiny, almost hidden single track trail head.  My mother insisted she had hiked it before so we should do it too.  Holy mother of incline.   We gained 700 ft over the next 1/2 mile.    Once we finally made it to the top, we found a picnic table.  We took a break and ate a few snacks.   And enjoyed the view.  🙂   We headed back down another way, hoping it was shorter way back.  Ha!IMG_8639 IMG_8666

Since we weren’t positive what mountain we were on, I pulled up a park map on my phone.   It didn’t really help.  Or maybe I just don’t know how to read it.  Eventually we found our way down to a trail intersection.  According to the map, the right trail led to a dead-end and the left trail was the backside of Hazard peak.    We went left which meant we then had another climb in front of us.     My mom’s knee was just starting to hurt and we coming up on 6 miles and we weren’t even at the top of the mountain.   Our pace had slowed but we mad it to the top once again and enjoyed more views.  There were some mountain bikers at the top discussing trails and I overheard one say that the trail we had not chosen led to another fire road.  Really?!  That would have been so much easier!  Where were they when we could have used directions?IMG_8645 IMG_8670Then it was time to head back towards the parking lot, down the front side of Hazard Peak.  So at least we were able to check out the race course from that direction.  Down hill it’s not too bad, but I am wondering what the uphill will feel like after 8 miles.   Guess I’ll find out next weekend!  We finally made it back to the parking lot- 9.65 miles later.   We survived, haha!  IMG_8701 IMG_8703Even with getting a little turned around, going farther than planned,and getting a little sunburned, it was a good hike.  I don’t think I would have hiked that far without getting turned around but some coughing attacks aside, it was great to get outside and do something again.    Plus it was a good practice run for next weekend.  It gave us a general idea of what kind of time to expect.  Sunday’s hike was just that a hike and we covered 9.65 miles with 1400 ft gained and maintained a 17:00 pace.  Next week the race will add some speed on the downhills but a little slowness when we climb Valencia Peak, but that’s only 1.5 towards the beginning, so fingers crossed?IMG_8734 IMG_8746Sunday’s route took us from fire road to single track, packed dirt to loose shale and then loose sand.   The surroundings changed from scrub brush to trees then to a Eucalyptus grove.   The sun was shining and sometimes we could hear the ocean.  I’d call it a pretty good day!

How was your weekend?

Ever got lost in the woods?  (yes, I wasn’t in the woods but still)  🙂

Changing it Up

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Last year I went on numerous hikes/ trail runs.  I would power walk up and run like a crazy person down them.  It was fun.   🙂   This year, with so many races and wanting to PR  a few, I was leery of trails.   Too afraid I would do something stupid and hurt myself.  Ego got in the way of fun.   😦     With my recent inability to maintain pace, I have decided to treat it like  good thing and get back off-road.  With that line of thought, I went and bought myself something pretty-trailshoesI figured that maybe an actual pair of trail shoes would be a good idea.  A little more traction for the times I careen wildly down a hillside.    Plus the purchase would help me guilt me into following through when I am feeling like a slacker.   🙂   Trails are the place where I have fun and don’t mentally berate myself for my pace.   I took my shoes for 3.5 mile spin around the lake in the dirt on Tuesday.   They felt great, so today is was time for a baby trail.

The easy part
The easy part

I was looking to start small, so my mom and I headed to the trail from the Firehouse 5K run.    It’s around 3 miles, give or take.  We headed up the back way, thinking we would hit the switchbacks on the way down.  Fine by me, switchbacks suck.     My shoes felt great in the loose dirt.  The only problem was my huffing and puffing.  It wasn’t humid so I thought I could get by without using my inhaler.  No luck, but I also hadn’t been stupid enough to leave it behind.    Gaining 500 ft in 3/4 of mile didn’t help either, but after using it I was fine.   The rest was mostly downhill, ha!

We made it! ( a little windy, too!)
We made it! ( a little windy, too!)

IMG_6789 IMG_6759The view from the top* was great as usual.  My mom wanted to go down a different path just to see where it went.   I think we lost most of that 500 feet in 1/4 mile.  I like downhill but this was ridiculous.  The sand was so loose, we kept sliding.  We slowed to a crawl-like pace but we made it.   Thank you shoes.  We came across a Y in the trail so we just picked one.  It led to another Y and again we just picked one.  The mountain’s not that big so we figured we wouldn’t get too turned around.  Plus this leaves more trails to explore another day.      IMG_6762

Where I started sliding
Where I started sliding

A little past 2 miles, we could see the road and figured that we had accidentally cut the hike super short.  It was getting pretty hot so we decided that we could deal with that instead of heading back the way we came.  Coming down the trail we came across 2 rows of white stone boxes on the right side and a few more on the left.  One was open, empty and a little broken.     Being the smart asses that we are, we start cracking jokes about the X-Files and vampires.

very large and ominous looking
very large and ominous looking

It looked like we were coming into the back of a park.  As we got closer we realized it was a cemetery.    Ok, the boxes make a little more sense.  But still stone?  Bad form for our previous wise cracks.   It was very pretty as we walked through to get back to main road. But I was also confused because the headstones seemed really close together.   I did Google it later and found that due to flooding over the years, not only have headstones moved but some graves have as well.  Some were moved to other cemeteries but the records are not the best.   IMG_6784

We came out on a rural highway.  We were actually about 1/2 mile away from where we parked but the road had wide shoulders.     Walking back put us around 3 miles.  It took us about an hour though, so it felt like a good workout.   So now it’s on to the next trail.  🙂

*I took a pretty cool panorama but it refuses to load-ugh.

How was your weekend?

Ever get turned around and end somewhere totally random on a run/ hike?

What’s the strangest thing you’ve encountered?