An Ice Cream recce’!

Saturday the fam’ loaded up and headed off to Marina del Rey to cash in on some Groupons that we had acquired for a days trip to Catalina Island.

I’ve been to Catalina several times before, once by boat bringing my mountain bike and riding up to the Airport in the Sky and the second by plane landing at the same airport. The ferry ride over was uneventful although there were two rather alcohol enthused girls making complete asses of themselves.

What was interesting for me, cos’ I am anal retentive like that was to be able to see the islands profile up close, well at least a bit closer than the mainland, there was no real reason other than I wanted to put some color to the elevation profile for the Eco Marathon in November, this is the elevation profile and experience has taught me that profiles while being accurate never really convey that sense of ‘up’!

So I snapped some photos and decided that yes they were indeed up!

We then set off to slowly eat our way around the island by way of a stop off at the glass bottom boat trip, the ice cream shop, hand made candy shop and few others…you get the picture! Talking of which there are a bunch below.

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The return trip was only marred by the failure of one of the boat’s engines which added another hour onto the journey…needless to say that went down well and it was well past 10:00pm by the time we got home!

Oh an in case you’re wondering what a recce is?

Therapy on a budget!

We all know the importance of stretching, sticking and foam rollering and all that good stuff, the next thing in that litany of self loving is a massage. Often overlooked due to time and cost…well I may be able to help out with the latter. Enter Groupon and fellow sites, so far this month I have picked up four massage vouchers for a grand total of $110, that’s near five hours of massage therapy. There’s can sometimes be a bit of hit and miss as to the quality so when I saw the Sports Therapy Clinic that my wife goes to had one I snapped it up and my wife got one too; 75 minutes for $39.00!

They are of course geographical but Groupon has nationwide coverage in the major US cities. The links below take you to the ones I use:

Groupon Los Angeles

Conejo Valley Deals

Living Social San Fernando Deals

The only catch of course is to now find the time to take them! Happy deal hunting!

Ten trail miles in ten photos…

I hit Cheeseboro Canyon this morning in the gloom of low cloud! Gotta love an El Nino Summer! Enjoy…

           Mile 1, low cloud and empty trails

Mile 2, on a sunny day the shade is very welcome

Mile 3, I don’t remember ever moving that fast!

Mile 4, I can’t help but think of this when I see this sign

Mile 5, more unneeded shade…hey I’ll take it!

Mile 6, greenery and Spring flowers

Mile 7, calves like Lance Armstrong…I wish!

Mile 8, high towers and low cloud

Mile 9, a little video of the trail

Mile 10, looking back over my shoulder

Mile 11, I named this crow Horton!

Mile 11.33,  home…well the car!

Station Fire; footage

The Station fire is almost contained, as it stands today it's at 93% containment, full containment is expected Tuesday, recent cooler temperatures have helped. Over 160,000 acres (250 square miles) have burned and the cost is approaching $100,000,000, two figefighters died and nearly 100 homes burned down. The arson investigation is ongoing. With fall and winter around the corner the concern will turn to landslides caused by rains and the lack of trees and vegetation to hold the hillsides together, this combined with the fire means that the landscape will never be the same.

There have been some amazing timelapse videos taken here's one of the better ones (apart from the music), it's HD so click to expand the picture you won't loose any quality.

Oh an just a qualifier on the last post; 'The List', I am not doing all of them, it's a list to choose races from. But thanks for your confidence in my abilities!

Station Fire Time Lapse - August 28, 2009 from Dan Finnerty on Vimeo.

Bloomin’ lovely!

Sunday I headed out to run a section of the Backbone Trail. I’ve run bits of it before; more by luck than judgment and I wanted to recce’ out as much of it as I can for when I run the whole thing in August. The trail crosses several main roads that run east to west as it runs itself north to south along the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains, what this means is that there are places to park and you can run sections. The plan was to park my car at Kanan Dune and run south, I was hoping for around 13 miles in total; which puts me a couple of miles short for next weeks start of training long run; 15 miles. The cloud was low and the weather was cool – perfect.

After a short sharp up the trail leveled out and then dropped down and then climbed up and then down and then up; this became a regular feature of the trail as there was very little “contouring” and mostly the trail assaulted the climbs in a full frontal manner, it was nothing too serious and gave me ample time to practice my walking!

I also managed a first for me, which is not bad considering all the miles I’ve covered; a faceplant! No harm done, more shock than pain and fortunately I landed on the side of the trail in the shrubbery! Of course what I tripped over was...absolutely nothing!

One nice feature was the continuous change in running surface; hard packed mud, to sand to trail dirt to bare faced rock in parts not only did the surface change but the environment did; literally you would round a bend and it was like being in a completely different climate; from thick woods, to meadows, to rocky desert it really was a case of if you don’t like something run a quarter mile and it’ll change. One noticeable feature was the riot of color from all the spring plants and flowers that are in bloom, yellows, oranges, purples and whites and of course accompanying the flowers was multitude of butterflies, at times it was like running through a butterfly garden.

Two and half hours of running and thirty minutes of taking photos and I was done and heading home.

For anyone local this makes and excellent and rewarding run or hike there's plenty of sign/mileage posts to tell you you're on the right trail, and if you have a buddy with a car you could easily set up a point to point rather than an out and back run. Here’s the MotionBased data and the photos.

A change is as good as a rest...

Just for a change I headed out to Satwiwa for a change of scenery. The cloud was low and it looked like a perfect day. 15 minutes drive and I was at the trailhead. No real plan just a follow your nose run for 10 miles or so. I saddled up and headed off.

This is the location of the XTerra Boney Mountain HM that I ran earlier in the year, so I thought it would be fun (fun in the broadest sense of the word!) to try some of the course in reverse.

Going the correct way is pretty tough, although I think that’s because the distance is short so you tend to go out too fast…well that and the fact that the first mile or so is flat out downhill! By the time you reach to high point at mile 9 you're pretty spent and you tend to fall down the other side which this way round I was going up.

I picked up the trail and was over taken by some other runners who I let go on ahead into the low cloud while I stripped of a layer, despite the low cloud and cool starting temperatures running uphill is enough to warm anyone up fast and the cloud was lifting revealing clear blue skies and a big glowing orb! The group ahead turned off and I continued upwards. I was hoping that there would actually be enough of an uphill to give me 5 miles allowing me to cruise on the way back down but it topped out around 3 miles, it was here that I found another trail; “Fossil” and decided a change of course was in order, this trail took me up a series of switchbacks and I topped out above the cloud. Contouring around the hillside; the view; had there been one would have been spectacular but the cloud below me was thick and obscured everything except a few hilltops! Another half mile and I was on the downswing, oh well. I hit a signpost and choose the longest trail distance that would give me mileage in hand. Cruising down the backside I rejoined the main trail that forms part of the Boney Mountain Trail and opens up wide views over Big Sycamore Canyon.

This trail forms part of the Backbone Trail which runs the 69 miles from Point Mugu in the North to Pacific Palisades in the south and is the longest run on my training schedule for AC100, which I have nearly finished. I hit the five mile mark, about faced and started on the upward return leg. As is always the case the return distance and time flew by and I managed to miss a turning but this had me running through a wheat(?) field and cut me short by a quarter mile but whatev’, before I knew it I was back at the car!

Only 10 more days of downtime till training starts…eek!

Garmin Fail! I did not reset and restarted later on...so runner Fail really! The first 10 miles are correct and the rest is just rubbish…oh well!



Here’s a quick slideshow of the photos.

Night Running!

So the plan had been to get up and out early so I could be back to offer MsQ a well deserved Mother’s day lie in however our scheming kids had their own plans and they were equally early…we’re talking before 6:00am. So running shoes off and with hushed tones we hung out till we were all awake and headed out for a nice brunch. Come 8:00pm I was putting my running shoes back on and telling my wife, whose face was agape, that yes I was running on the trails, yes I had a torch; two in fact and yes I would leave a map of were I was going and call here when I got back to the car.

Night running on trails is, in my mind a lot of fun; cooler, quieter (apart from the critters) and the fact that you can’t really see where you’re going takes the sting out of some of the hills! It's also something I am going to have to get used for AC100 as I will be running through it for a long time! The plan; as it was, was to run there and back again which should be somewhere between 8-10 miles and so I drove to the local trailhead and set off, no iPod but merrily keeping myself company by recording my podcast as I went.

The run was pretty much uneventful, I managed to freak myself a couple of times thinking I was being followed, if I was whatever it was jumped into the underbrush as fast as I could turn around, there was the stupid bird that I nearly stepped on who was sitting in the middle of the trail minding his own business, and a small incident involving a low flying bird or bat which had me waving my arms around like an over enthusiastic runway controller! Still ninety minutes or so later I was back at the car and calling my wife.

A most excellent run! Here's the MotionBased data and some more photos.

This way, that way and a hitchhiker!

So yesterday I headed back to the Los Robles trail for another exploratory run, this week I decided to go left (east) instead of right (west). I caught my rhythm and made my way up the hill, pretty much most things are uphill from the parking lots. I got to the top and saw a sign for a “scenic loop” which was a bit misleading and was really a detour! Still it was scenic.

I met a couple hiking and I asked them for some pointers on the trail and despite me saying that I did not want to go back to the parking lot they gave me some directions that pointedly were taking me there! Oh well. Anyway I thanked them and after a quarter mile met another guy who I had seen earlier who seemed to know where he was heading and what he was doing. He sure did! He went on to tell me that he hikes there 6 days a week, I swear he was not a day under 65! He told me about several trails in this park and of some others further along the valley. I was under no pressure for distance so I whiled a way a very pleasant 20 minutes or so just chatting about the trails and parks…a real benefit of being outside of a training plan.

Anyway he gave me some pointers and I returned the way I came and caught the western trail, this I followed until I was pushed for time at which point I about faced and headed back to the car. Some ways along the trail something caught my eye and I took off my visor to see I had picked up a hitchhiker, I had no idea how long he had been there but I set him down on a juicy looking leaf and headed back to my car. Nine, nearly ten miles, a great chat and a hitchhiker…not bad for a mornings trail work!

Here is the MotionBased data and some photos.

Breaking new trails...

An easy start back, my first run post Leona Divide and I decided to explore some of the local trails, these are totally new to me so it was a case of just following my nose. I only had an hour or so as we were decamping to LegoLand en familie for the remainder of the day. The trailhead is a long mile away (more than one less than two by car odometer) from the house and has free parking. The Los Robles Trail area covers about 2000 acres and connects to the 27,000 acres of Pt Mugu State Park.

There was a trailhead map board with the usual info about local trails an critters, as best I can see there are approximately 40-50 miles of trails here including the back on any out and backs, the elevation is not so great but as a local resource its excellent. I didn’t make it over the hill so I do not know what lies the other side; next time I am sure I’ll find out.

Anyway here are a few photos I snapped and the MotionBased data:

Looking North along the Conejo Valley; some inviting and gnarly switchbacks

Looking South along the Conejo Valley, I've run up from about the middle of the photo

I love SoCal trails!

Coming up for air!

So the last week has been spent moving house no need to tell anyone how much of a pain that is. Boxes everywhere, no internet connection (it's currently works on a wired connection only; can you say old technology!), a complete inability to find anything and two menacing children demanding the reinstatement of their swingset and trampoline; fortunately we're now within walking distance of the local park complete with swingset and sandpit!

We've moved into a slightly smaller house in a nicer area (and better school district) so we're trying to consolidate everything, I can kiss goodbye to parking my car in the garage, which is now destined to contain not only lots of stored items but also the treadmill; a scenic surround I think not, not that I'll need it anytime soon as Spring is in full flow.

Anyway this was just a quickie to say I am still alive but just resurfacing from the avalanche of brown cardboard, bubble wrap and packing tape!

22 miles photog edition!

Twenty three miles was on the plan for this weekend, seeing as I have verbosely posted nearly every day for the last week I'll spare you the write up and you can have the pictorial version. I ended up a bit short on mileage and I was feeling it by the end which was the feedback from the 8 mile tempo run from the night before.

I ventured off onto a new trail on an out and back and then came back to finish off with running loops, I wanted distance not elevation, it was, all in all a good run. The trailhead is about a half mile from our house and I figured, with our move pending, it may be a last opportunity to run to around this area in a while, enjoy:

Mile 1: The start...

Mile 2: It looked a lot better with the crow on the tree

Mile 3: Damp views over the valley

Mile 4: A carpet of spring flowers

Mile 5: Recent rain and sunshine means everything grows quickly

Mile 6: California Whipsnake; a bit worse for wear

Mile 7: Ever onwards...

Mile 8: There are sulfur springs in the area that kill off the trees over time

Mile 9: This is actually a dried river bed!

Mile 10: climbing up from the valley floor

Mile 11: Disappearing into the mist!

Mile 12: Halfway...slight condensation on my glasses!

Mile 13: More damp views!

Mile 14: A sign!

Mile 15: Homeward bound

Mile 16: More spring color

Mile 18: Money can buy you a big house...but it can't buy you any taste!

Mile 19: Greenway trails

Mile 20: Last big view of the run

Mile 21: It's all about mind...

Mile 22:...over matter!

MotionBased data: