A Run on the Wild Side

A and I spent the holidays in Big Sur this year.  There was so much natural beauty to take in, it was almost hard to process.  We had to pull over every few miles on Highway 1 for a new photo opportunity that was more beautiful and very different from the last.

Here is a picture of the sun setting above the fog our first night there:

And this is the sunrise from our yurt the next morning:

After enjoying the view and eating a hearty breakfast, A and I embarked on an 8-mile trail run in Andrew Molera State Park.  Considering our penchant for losing our way on trail runs, we only missed one turn and ended up doing our intended loop in reverse.  For us, that's what I call success.

In truth, the reroute was good fortune because it turned the most concentrated length of elevation change into a climb versus a descent.  I'm chagrined to admit I walked a good portion of the steep uphill while A waited for me at the top.  That being said, running downhill gives me a worse hangover than running up.  We ran about 3.5 miles straight down a 30-degree slope and my quads were angry rubberbands the next day.

Our run was almost a nonstarter when I realized that before we could begin, we'd have to take off our shoes and wade knee-deep across a creek filled with winter-cold water.  I still don't know how A convinced me to do it, but I'm proud to say that I didn't complain for too long afterwards once I was on the other side.

The first half of the trail was single-track and technical.  We were running along a bluff overlooking the ocean, but most of the beauty was missed because it took all my concentration to navigate the rocky, narrow path.  But the biggest hazard by far was the virtual forest of poison oak that rangers can't warn you about enough.  Luckily my very sensitive husband wisely wore long pants, kept to the middle of the trail, and heeded the mantra "Leaves of three, let it be".

At one point near the summit, A stopped suddenly a few feet ahead of me.  There was an animal on the trail ahead of us.  After seeing the many posted warnings about mountain lions, A immediately thought we had our first sighting.  It ran along the dirt a few yards ahead and looked back a few times before darting into the brush.  I thought I saw pointed ears and its fur looked more gray than beige.  We decided it probably was a really big fox instead of a hungry mountain lion.  Nevertheless, A started whistling and I clapped my hands to make us sound large, in charge, and thereby unattractive prey.

Aside from that, we were completely alone for about six miles.  Finally we saw another couple hiking in the opposite direction who confirmed that we were not too far from the trailhead.  Turns out, the living creature I'm most excited to see while on a trail is another human.  I know diehards love trail running because of the solitude, but I find it spooky being so alone.  The irony is, in the city, I hate everyone I'm forced to share the sidewalk with.

After about two hours, we were crossing the creek to get back to the parking lot.  Since my shoes were quite dirty, I kept them on to give them a wash.  They took a bit longer than expected to dry, but luckily I had another pair of shoes to wear on our 5-mile hike the next day.  But I wish I had remembered to bring along a spare pair of quads.

Slacking Off!

While I've been slacking off from writing this blog, a woman in New Zealand ran 311 miles over three days straight, all while granting interviews along the way.

I can't even run 10 miles and write about it the next day.  Hopefully 2014 will give me more running and writing inspiration.

Hunger Games

Our mileage is accruing, and so are the candy wrappers.  Just like the last time we trained for a marathon, I'm hungry all the time.  This time around, I'm going to try to keep my appetite in check because the last marathon I did was run at my heaviest weight ever.

When I say that marathon training makes me gain weight, people look at me like I'm crazy.  But when you're always eating, it's bound to happen.  The holiday season is not helping my willpower, either, since I'm finding I have a lot of delicious food right at my fingertips at all hours of the day.  At least I'm burning some of it off.  And hey, since I'm running sixteen miles this weekend, I can have another cookie, right?

Rain Delay

Our 14 mile run yesterday morning was again put on hold thanks to a driving rain.   I knew that a storm was in the forecast, but I staunchly refused to accept it.  We prepped Friday night, hydrating well and eating an entire loaf of French bread.  I thought we could sneak in our run before the heavens opened and laugh in the face of Mother Nature.

When we woke up, it was still dry outside.  We thought we could get away with it, but thirty minutes later the rain started falling so we dejectedly postponed the run till the next morning.  Though I was glad we didn't get stuck in the downpour, part of me wondered if we made the right decision.

We ran errands, ate veggie sushi, and futzed around.  Blue skies slowly poked through around noon, and though the forecast still said more rain was coming, we wondered if we could squeeze our run in after all.  We digested, hydrated, looked out the window, then at the last possible moment said, "We're going for it."

We were running against potential rain and the impending sunset.  The conditions were tough.  The second half of the run was due west, right into the low sunset, the beam of which my visor couldn't shield.  It was brutally cold and the wind was the nastiest I've ever fought against.  The wind pushed so hard against me the last mile, I was practically running in place.  To top it off, seagulls were dropping clams overhead, cracking the shells on impact to get to the meat inside.  We were dodging little seafood bombs while running into a wall of wind.

I'm not sure if it was despite the harsh weather and odd hour or because of it, but we finished in record time.  We bested our pace from the half marathon in January, and it's been our fastest and longest run without stopping to date.  Maybe I should hope for rain delays more often.

Good & Twenty

I just read this article about how researchers in Australia have concluded that running ultras can add sixteen years to your life.  They studied a group of ultra runners who had an average age of 43 but were "biologically 27".  These runners logged about 40-100 kilometers (24-62 miles) per week.

With the marathon looming, we've slowly ramped up our weekly mileage.  We're running around the low end of the researchers' mileage scale now that we're at the business end of our training.  That being said, does this mean that since I'm turning 36 this month, I am really biologically only 20 years old?

If so, what's with all these greys?

Experimentation

After having our planned fourteen-mile run thwarted by Mother Nature, we called an audible the next day.  Instead of doing the fourteen as intended, A suggested that instead we try a training exercise he just read about in a running magazine I brought home from work.

It's a pretty basic interval: run a mile, walk a minute.  Even though we haven't run longer than twelve miles thus far in this marathon training cycle, hoping the walking breaks would give us more stamina, we set out to cover eighteen miles yesterday morning.

My hope was that the miles would be run at pace or faster.  This turned out not to be the case.  The miles got progressively slower and on average were about fifteen-seconds off  what we would need to run to make our goal.  A thought it was because it took us time to build up speed after our minute walks.  I thought it was because the route had a lot of elevation gain.  The truth is probably because we were just tired.

I found myself both desperate for the walking breaks but also dreading them.  I was disheartened by how long the miles felt and how quickly the minute melted away.  By the end of our eighteen-mile trek, I was both mentally and physically sore.  My lower back was in revolt.  My reserves, which I thought were so well stocked with an enormous Thanksgiving meal and equally enormous leftovers, were depleted.  My mental focus, questionable.

Despite the struggle, A felt the experiment was a success.  We went from twelve to eighteen miles in a week.  Strangely, including our sixteen minutes walking, our pace was faster than our previous marathon - by a lot.  And it broke up a training routine which gets stale quickly.  Who knows if we'll do another interval run like this again, but it was definitely worth a try.