Wide Angle

I got off late on Friday, about 2 PM (surprise, surprise) for my pretty regular ten mile loop in Aliso/Wood Canyons.  I was armed with a new camera.  (My product warranty check came in – yay!  These product warranties on my cameras are the deal of the century for me.)  My new camera has a wide angle lens, which is new for me.  My husband’s professional camera has a wide-angle lens that I’ve never been too impressed with, 1) because it’s too dang bulky, and 2) it casts a shadow when the flash is used that I didn’t care to learn how to deal with.  But my new camera is one of those little things with the lens built in, and I hardly ever use a flash (& even if I did, I’m not getting a shadow with this camera). 

About a mile and a half into this run, after the back of my thigh began to ache, I switched on the wide angle for some shots of trails I have run countless times.   I was surprised what a different view this camera gives  – a more realistic view, one that captures not only what’s in front of me, but also what seems to surround me.  Very happy with my new purchase. 

The ache on the back of my thigh, right around the upper knee, grew worse as I made my way toward Mentally Sensitive.  I considered cutting the loop about a mile short by running up Meadows Trail instead.  Meadows is a steep switch-back to the ridge.  Mentally Sensitive is steeper, and not much of a switch-back at all.  I opted for Mentally Sensitive, because I’m just that way sometimes – a glutton for punishment.

I found the climb up Mentally Sensitive excruciating, but not surprisingly.  Fortunately, I had my new wide angle lens camera to keep my mind off the growing pain in my leg. 

By the time I reached the top of Mentally Sensitive, my leg was no longer an ache – it  hurt.  I could still run along the ridge, and I did.  By the time I made it to Meadows, I decided it was time to cut this ten mile loop down to seven miles.  I headed down the steep Meadows’ switch-back suffering.  It’s a mystery to me how I injured my leg.  There was no event, no popping, nothing to indicate an injury.  My guess is that I strained it the day before in the gym.  That’s what I’m hoping anyway, as I think that I can recover from that pretty quickly.

The Top of Mentally Sensitive/Saddleback Mountains in the background:

By the time I reached the bottom of Meadows, I could no longer run.  I couldn’t much walk either.  The pain remained the same whether I ran or walked.  That last mile and a half, I mostly walked, but ran some because I wanted to finish this up to stop the pain.  Finally back at the truck, I wept.  I didn’t cry because of the pain though – I was just so dang angry about having an injury.  I am such a baby when it comes to mentally enduring injuries.    Maybe that’s what they mean by “Mentally Sensitive.”

Misty Summer

Wednesday’s Run:

Miles:  10.39 (16.72 km)

Elevation Gain: 1,243 ft (379 m)

Location:  Aliso/Wood Canyons

Route:  Aliso Creek Trail, Wood Canyon, Meadows, Mentally Sensitive, Top of the World, West Ridge, Mathis, Wood Canyon, Aliso Creek Trail

Weather:  humid, but a deliciously cool and misty summer morning.  Began running in the clouds, ended beneath sunshine.

Mentally Sensitive

I got out for some trail miles this morning under wonderfully dark and gloomy skies.  The weather was muggy, but a little cool as well.  I struggled once again up Mentally Sensitive – it’s not getting any easier (not yet anyway).   The best thing was:  I made it to the top!

Total miles run:  10.66 (17.2 km).  My guess was 10.8 miles.  My guesses seem to be getting further and further away.  It must be all that Mentally Sensitive stuff is making my brain mush.

The deceitful Mentally Sensitive Trail:

And then the Going Gets Tough:

Almost Over

I feel like I’ve been running an ultra, the finish line is in sight, AND I JUST CANNOT TAKE ANOTHER STEP. I don’t feel this way from running though – I’m talking about the end of the school year, and I don’t feel like I have it in me to cross the finish line. The boys are ALMOST, ALMOST finished. My grade-schooler is as good as finished. But my middle-schooler and high-schooler have their noses to the grind, pumping out projects and studying for finals. My night job (adult education) is in its final week. And I’ve been taking more substitute teaching assignments than usual because it’s all coming to an end. But I AM SOOOOO TIRED. Just. A. Little. Bit. Longer. Take one more step. And then another. And then another.  This is what I tell myself when I’m running.  Hopefully it will work for this.

I have time to make quick stops at the gym. Very little time for the trails. I do have two trail runs to report this week. First, on Sunday, I took a practice run on twenty miles of the 50k race I’m running in four weeks. Though not a technical course, it’s a tough course. A LOT OF UPHILL (For that matter, a lot of downhill too, but the uphill is so relentless, that by the time it’s downhill time, I’m pooped).

On Sunday, I packed a great deal of water, as I’ve gotten myself in trouble on these very trails before. In all I carried 110 fluid ounces. Seventy of those were in my pack bladder, the remaining I carried mostly on my back. Thank goodness I don’t have to carry that extra water weight during the race. On Sunday, my back ached so much by the time I reached my turnaround point, I broke down and took two ibuprofen. I also cut open beneath the mouth of my plastic water bottles so that I could pour the still frozen water chunks into my bladder and carry the fluids in a centralized location. This made a huge difference comfort-wise on the downhill portion. On the bad side, it took me 6 hours to travel twenty miles. Granted, on race day, I will probably move faster. But as usual, I will need to move A LOT faster. On the good side, I came in on those twenty miles feeling strong. Back at home, I didn’t even take a nap.  Oh!  And I ran up on two snakes on Harding Truck Trail during this run – a ribbon snake (garter snake?) and a gopher snake.

Report 2, today (Thursday) I hit the trails for a 12.50 mile run that I had no business running.  I have absolutely no time for this!  I didn’t have a sub job though, so damn the laundry and damn the dishes.  They can wait until after I cross the finish line!  (Tell that to the boys who had to scrounge around for underwear this morning – because today I also had a small report to write for a six hour meeting I’m attending tomorrow, attendance to record and print for June, a timecard to complete, Vacation Bible School registration to complete, a son to coach in Spanish, and a three hour testing lab to run at the Adult School, etc., etc., etc.,).  And so I ran anyway!

A helicopter hovered close to the ground at the get-go in Aliso Canyon.  It had border patrol colors (green and white), so my guess was they were looking for someone.  Either that, or they were just running maneuvers.  The noise got a little annoying at times though – and it did seem they were looking for something or someone, as the helicopter flew so close I could see the passenger leaning out and looking toward the ground.  And as I gleefully ran along the dusty trail, I got to thinking about how stupid this was if the helicopter was Border Control, that the U.S. would leave the borders so easily crossable and then hunt people who cross illegally inside the borders as if they were animals or hardened criminals.  I mean, come on!  If it’s that important that you spend so much manpower and money to hunt people down, why not make it more difficult to cross?  Ah . . .  off subject, I guess.  Immigration is a huge and controversial subject here in California.  Regardless of my views on the matter, I hate this hunting down of people.  Hate. It.  And I had PLENTY of time to think about it as this helicopter swept down low into the valley for HOURS today.  Seriously, hours.  (Do note that it’s only my speculation over what they were doing – but we all know here that green and white is Border Control.  Just sayen).

SO!  I “ran” up Mentally Sensitive as the helicopter continued to hover about.  And I found time to smile despite that trail’s retched incline. 

And then I smiled tenfold as I ran along Top of the World and saw this baby goat.  I so wanted to hop the electrified fence and take him for my own.  But alas, I ran on because time was running short, and I still had so much to do.

And then, silly, crazy me, I decided to lengthen my loop (originally planned on 10.75 miles) for a 12.50 mile loop.  Why?  All because I wanted to run down RockIt which is a huge challenge, even on the downhill.  It’s steep in some parts, and so unevenly rocky, that I find it quite difficult to gain any speed.  Still I try.  And try I did.  And I didn’t even fall on RockIt.  I fell on Coyote Run Trail.  Flat on my butt.  Serves me right.    I really had no business putting in a 12+ mile trail run today anyway. 

Goat Recovery

I can now talk about Nanny Goat without tearing up.  It’s not that I’m sad about it. But even thinking about the event teared me up.  I don’t know exactly why.  I just know the whole experience has made me emotional. 

I haven’t had time to run since I crawled ran walked across the finish line on Sunday.  I’ve done some workouts at the gym since then.  One thing that I noticed immediately was that the weights I had been lifting suddenly seemed quite light this week.  I guess it’s time to up the weight. 

Today, after some set-backs getting out the door, I finally made it to Aliso/Wood Canyons for my “recovery run.”  I ran a semi-big loop which included climbing Mentally Sensitive -- a hard-ass incline with an ocean view at the top and a stop by several adorable goats grazing upon the meadow grass.  Talk about a goat recovery!  

As I ran along the ridge, I began receiving text messages from my oldest son.  He was sitting in his high school class during a school-wide lockdown.  Apparently, (though we had no verifiable facts at the time), someone had found an empty rifle carrying case in the parking lot.  Knowing only for sure that they were on lockdown (all students locked within their classes), the police were swarming the campus and a helicopter hovered above (reports from hubby’s text messages), I decided to pick up my pace a bit for the last five miles.  Though I was quite fatigued, I managed to run it all the way in, not as a speed-racer mind you, but in plenty of time to make it home to worry more and see all the television news vans and parents lined up along the road near the high school.  (The students were finally released at about 4PM, an hour and fifteen minutes past regular time, and as far as we know, no gun was found.) 

10.88 miles run

The Art of Suffering

Somewhere along my journey on the trails, I lost my way.  It didn’t happen all at once, but began when I was training for Twin Peaks 2012, in the last month before the race with my first signs of plantar fasciitis.  That was just the beginning.  Being pulled from Old Goat at mile 41 was the clincher.  I still tear up when I recount that moment when the jeep pulled up and the driver gave me the bad news.   All that work, all that suffering was for nothing.  But it wasn’t really.  I gained a lot that day, though all that new-found knowledge was not immediately known.  

Fast forward to May 2014, I’ve been making my way back since January of this year when I ran the Calico 30k.  I’ve been building up my mileage, albeit slowly.  I’ve been losing some pounds, albeut slowly (11 so far, but hey, at least the scale number is now going down and not up).  I’m also registered for 3 upcoming races, Nanny Goat 24 Hour (very soon!), Spartan Beast (September) and Twin Peaks 50 Miler (October).  And as soon as I get paid, I will register for Harding Hustle 50k (July).  

And then this:  Saturday, while riding the gym bike, I pulled out my complimentary copy of Spartan Up!  And within the first paragraph realized what the heck went wrong with my endurance running.  I realized that while trying to get through these huge challenges, I thought that I needed to “suffer better.”  By “suffer better,” I wanted to more quickly win the mental battles, stop throwing the little temper-tantrums when I couldn’t summit fast enough, and most of all, stop the sobbing.  But somehow that “suffer better” quest turned into “not suffer at all.”  Ya!  Like I’m going to run 30 to 50 miles in the mountains and not suffer!  What was I thinking?  I knew all along, but somehow forgot, that it’s not the “doing” that’s the prize -- it’s the conquering, it’s enduring the suffering to have it come to an end.  I once knew this!  I FORGOT.  Thanks goodness I remembered.  Thank you for the reminder Joe DeSena.  

Once I remembered that it’s not about the suffering, it’s about ENDURING the suffering, it changed a whole lot about my training these past few days.  The very next day in fact, I didn’t wake at the crack of dawn so that I could get my trail run done in cool weather.  Instead,  I went to church with my family (I haven’t done that in a long time!), did some errands and finally hit the trails at 1:30 in the afternoon, in the thick of the heat.  I made the run much more difficult on purpose.  Imagine that!!  The hills were difficult because of the heat, yes, but I gladly endured them.  Climbing Mentally Sensitive was a bear, but somehow it was not as difficult as it normally is.  It wasn’t as difficult because I realized that the prize wasn’t the actual climbing of this monster hill.  The prize was reaching the top, putting an end to my suffering, and looking out over the miles of trails I had already covered.  It doesn’t have to be pretty going up.  But it sure is pretty looking down. :)

Things that I do

As I approach the end to my Easter Running Streak, I think that I’ve come to a decision.  My decision:  I am going to end this streak when April ends, as I originally planned.  For a while during this month’s streak, I was contemplating keeping my streak going through May.  I thought it would be cool if I could top my longest streak of 56 days.  BUT, I’m not feeling that “love” anymore.  That is not to say that I don’t love running.  I still love running.  But it’s time, really time, to get my butt in gear and cross-train so that I can start to build my overall strength.  It may seem odd, but I feel so weak, even though I can get out on the trails and run mile after mile.  My upper body is weak, my core is weak, my mental strength is weak. It’s time to get back to weights, planks, burpees, swimming, etc.   Meanwhile, I’m off to finish this April/Easter Running streak strong.  Thanks so much to Johann who influenced me to do this.  (I should not count my chickens before they hatch however, I’ve still got two days to go)

Day 27:   I was so dead-dog tired, it took all that I had to put in a minimum run.  About 3 0’ clock in the afternoon, I took a run downtown for a total of 1.36 miles (2.19 km).

Day 28:  I ran in the coastal hills for 11.21 miles (18.04 km).  I struggled quite a bit running up that crazy, whacky trail called Mentally Sensitive (aka. Psycho-Path) AND I LIKED IT.   I got in some Swing Time at Top of the World.  And I ran up on a huge rattlesnake in Wood Canyon.  But alas, I could not run up on it fast enough to catch a good photo for proof. 

Psycho-Path:

Swing Time:

Top of the World:

I am pleased with my mileage today, especially because I was able to pick up my pace here and there, even while fatigued.  My guess for this run was 11.13 miles.  That’s something I do.  I always, always, always guess my mileage down to the one-hundredth of a mile.  I very seldom guess right-on, even on out-and-backs.  Today, I felt confident that I guessed it exactly.  (I allow myself approximately a mile out to come up with a final number).  Today, I almost slapped my garmin off when I hit 11.13 miles so that my guess would be correct.  How silly is that?  To cheat at a game that only I’m playing?  I didn’t cheat.  I kept running to my truck and kept the garmin running, and came in at 11.21.  Shocking.  I really thought I had it this time. 

Two more days to go . . .

Mama Said There’ll Be Days Like This

Running streak going strong (well, not necessarily strong, but at least still going )

Day 22:  Tuesday was busy with getting the boys back to school, doing chores, etc.  I watched my youngest during his after school running program, then visited my brother in the hospital.  In the evening I was off to teach an adult Excel class at a local high school.  Somewhere in all this, I squeezed in a minimum run about the neighborhood totaling 1.20 miles (1.9 km). Nothing to write home about, but I did work up a sweat, and I did meet my minimum to continue this streak.  

Day 23:  Today was a little less hectic.  I ran first thing, or almost first thing (after getting the boys off to school), so that I wouldn’t flake and opt for a back-to-back minimum.   I hit the dirt in Aliso/Wood Canyons and soon found myself making and receiving work calls concerning my classes.  I was happy to finalize some things and was able to run more freely.  Soon however, I felt weak and tired, and the negative, “I’m no runner,” talk came prancing in. 

Despite my weakness and slight negative talk, I managed to run 11 miles (17.70 km) in this wonderful “wilderness” park.  I’ve put in enough miles in my short running career to know there’d be days like this.  And so, I went with it – hiking when it became too much and always, always remembering to appreciate the beauty.  And it was a beauty.  No matter how tough the trails become, they’re always beautiful.

Nostalgia

Day 14: I hit the trails in Aliso/Wood Canyons Wilderness park.  The weather was perfectly warm with an almost hot breeze, a nostalgic breeze.  The weather brought back many memories as I ran through the two canyons.   I’ve been running the trails in this park for a long time.  There was a time I could get lost here.  There was a time that I did get lost here.  There was a time when I had not yet run every single trail in the park.   Now I know them all. 

On the morning of my 14th day in this running streak, I decided to take the toughest climb to the ridge.  That’s right, Mentally Sensitive (better known in my mind as “Psycho Path.”) 

It’s deceiving at first:

After all the nice, pretty stuff, Mentally Sensitive dumps you out onto an asphalt road for a little jaunt.  There was this guy to warn me off from the evils of “Psycho Path.”

But I didn’t take his warnings because sometimes I am insanely determined.  It was pretty dang miserable too, so steep and difficult it was.  Can it get any better?  This is the top of Mentally Sensitive:

And this is at Top of the World (overlooking Laguna Beach):

I finished up the eleven trail miles a little sluggish, as the warm winds brought back memories of finishing up these trails with drastically less vigor.  I recalled coming out of this canyon many times ready to collapse.  I recalled the friends that I suffered with on these very trails in hot, hot weather, and how we quietly bonded in our suffering.  Boy!  That’s great stuff.  Remembering those runs nearly made me cry. 

When I got home I registered for a Spartan Race (come September!  One month prior to Twin Peaks!!!).  What the heck was I thinking?   It was the nostalgia I tell you!  Nostalgia made me do it.  Wasn’t that what got me into trail running in the first place? Yes, indeed it was.  If I hadn’t camped in Calico as a young Girl Scout, I probably wouldn’t be a trail runner today. 

Day 15:  I began my burpee training.  And as my husband watched me struggle off to the side, he said, “Ummmm, I think you have a problem.”  He said out loud what I knew.  How can I be so weak and at the same time be able to run for so many miles.  Well, first off, I hardly cross train any more.  And I also don’t swim any more.  Something to change.  But first, after a good sweat and some rapid burpee heart beats, I took off for a minimum run around the neighborhood.  On the 15th day of my running streak, I ran 1.32 miles.