15 Mile Trail Run: Quicksilver Park

13 miler in Aptos - last Sunday 8/24/08

I have been trying in vain to get a network of people to train with and finally I was invited to run with two girls from my tri training clinic that from this spring. Remember the "Mean girls"? Well, these gals were the least mean of the mean girls.

I feel like my relationship with these girls is much like that of one with a guy you meet at a party. You have a couple of laughs, exchange phone numbers, and he never calls. You wonder if it is you. Are you just a big loser? Then you meet up again, by chance, a few more laughs are exchanged and you actually set up a date. It is a good date, not a great date, but again he never calls. Now, you are certain you are a big loser.

Whatever. I'm over it.

I ran 13 miles on a beautiful trail in The Forest of Nisene Marks. I already felt like a big nerd with these girls, so no pictures. Photo credit: Kevin Gong (some dude's picture I found on Google images) This is the trail we ran on. Loma Prieta Grade Trail.

Elevation for run ( I forgot to start my Garmin until a little less than a mile in. After comments were made about "For real runners, running is not about the numbers" Whatever.)


Open water Swim Clinic No. 2 - Saturday 8/30/08

This was the second of a four clinic series.

We had to buddy up. I asked the slowest swimmer from last week, but she already had a buddy. I decided to swim with them anyway. Long story short, there were harbor Seals in the water that were very fascinated by the odd, inefficiently swimming seals and they kept popping up to check us out.

When the first pair popped up about 5 feet from us she kind of freaked out, so I stayed with her and we made it through the 1000 yard ocean swim at a pace that literally made the seals laugh at us.

Funny thing, that morning I read Steve in a Speedo's post about watching Jaws the night before his tri. Then my mind started racing and that had me a little spooked (Thanks for that by the way! You were swimming in a RIVER. I was swimming in the OCEAN, where sharks actually live! Sheesh Louise). But once I was in the water, the seals didn't bother me. They got closer to us than any of the other swimmers since we were going so slow and she kept stopping. They are beautiful though.

Picture: Stolen from Google images. Dude didn't put his name on his blog and hasn't updated since April, so no love for him!

Next week is the dreaded swim around the Wharf. NOT happy about that one. Especially since all the faster swimmers drop you like a bad habit and I end up alone. I doubt my partner from this week will do the swim next week. Awesome.

15 mile trail Run - Today! Sunday 8/31/08

FINALLY! Some good news!

Today I set out to do a 15 mile trail run. My LA Run buddy is up for the weekend and she said she wanted to go with me. She wasn't ready for 15 miles but she said she would do 7 and wait for me in the car.

Picture: Pre-run ham shot.

We went out to the trail where I saw the rattlesnake two weeks ago. No snake today, and no, I did not tell LA Run Buddy about the snake. She would NOT have been happy.

We did, however see a small family of deer as we descended into the valley and the morning sun! LA Run Buddy has not done any trail running except for the one time I dragged her up an unknown, nasty 2.5 mile trail with 1200 feet of gain. Oops! Unfortunately, I once again did not have a clue what the trail held for us after the first 2 miles. She ran 3.5 miles with me and then turned around to head back. It had more climb than she bargained for, but I think she enjoyed herself.
Picture: LA Run Buddy feigning excitement over the deer (the deer are the tiny dots WAY in the distance). She is sooo damn cute!

When we reached the highest point of the trail we were only about 2.75 miles in. This meant that we started to descend. And descend, and descend, and descend. At 3. 5 LA Run buddy turned around, but I was only at 3.5 miles, but I had 4 more miles before my turnaround.

I was starting to get concerned about climbing back up this mother of a hill. At mile 5 I turned up another trail and told myself repeatedly to not turn again so I would not get lost.

Picture: My trail gaiters! I think they are so cute and I have gotten several compliments on them!















At the top of this trail, I tried my first attempt to use the timer function on my camera to get a trail gaiter picture, but you can't see them too well, and you see entirely too much ass. That is probably more due to excessive cake consumption and less about the camera.

I also snapped a few shots of the incredible view and the ever present FSB's !
















I only took one slight detour on the way back which I will count as a win. All in all, beautiful run and I felt good for the whole thing. Hell of a way to spend a Sunday!

Oh, and just to improve my street cred here is the elevation chart: