My own private marathon…

Well almost. Almost private and almost a marathon. I was actually scheduled to run 24 miles this weekend and 26 next, but I have a little out-patient thing this week and so with no long run this coming weekend I upped the distance to 26. Saturday it poured with rain on and off all day and we had thunder and lightening and everything and I was wondering what the state of the trail was going to be like. I hadn’t needed to worry as it was so damn hilly that it had drained pretty well. I met with Jes from the TRC who was going to run for time rather than distance and we agreed to do a short out and back in the dark meet up with the main group and then run with them. Anyway best laid plans; we met some of the main group on the back section and then lost them altogether and then lost Jes as well, when I finally got back to the start her car was gone, in fact they were all gone!

But back to the run. So with the cloud swirling about and the temperatures almost prefect I plugged on up the hill. The mud on the lower levels gave way to rocks and shale and the higher I got the dryer it became. After seven miles of up (the first 2.4 were a repeat of the out and back) and an approx gain of 3500’ and a total mileage of 13 miles outbound I hit the turn around point at Castro Peak. Discretion being the order of the day; at the forth set of Keep-Out sign and with the antennas within sight I figured it was close enough. On the way back down I realized that I was going to come in way under on the mileage and so I started running mile repeats backwards and forwards on the trail, resulting in a very strange look from a pair of hikers who I saw three times from three different directions within the space of half an hour!

With the extra miles under my belt it was now a race against the clock, and I pushed down the hill aiming to get to car by 11:00am, failing by 10 mins.

All in all, despite being short on miles, it was a great run, had I had the time I could have clicked off the extra miles and probably a few more. It goes a long way to reinforcing that last weeks bad run was weather driven and that while I can run in the heat, there is a limit and 90degrees plus is about it!

The totals were: 23:7 miles (nearly a marathon; well within 5k), 5:13 trail time, 4:47 moving time, 6705’ of elevation gain; not surprising as the route was 43% up, 43% down and 14% flat!

There are some pretty good pictures here some babbling video here, here and here and the MotionBased data:



I am sifting through the swaps, start weights and all that good stuff and will post all the info tomorrow.