Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve

Last week was a cut back week in my marathon plan so I hit the hills on my 10 mile long run at Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve in Woodside, California. I never get used to how beautiful the trails are in the San Francisco Bay and if you are willing to brave the elevation changes the rewards are great.  The preserve is located on the western side of the Santa Cruz Mountains and you can even see the ocean from the northern part of the preserve. I ran down the Harkins Ridge Trail to the Bay Area Ridge and Craig Britton Trail down into the base of the canyon to the Purisima Creek Trail and then back up the Harkins Ridge Trail.  I stopped to take pictures every few miles because it was so beautiful but the poor white balance on my iPhone dulled the bright green of all the trees so just imagine everything much more saturated than this.  It was pretty slippery with mud in some places, I look forward to coming back when it hasn't been raining so I'm not slipping and sliding down the hills.

 

Out for a week + Mileage ending 9/22/13

I fell on that awesome Wunderlich trail run the other day when my foot caught a root and although I ran about 2 more miles after that, I ended up taking a week off because I mildly sprained my knee on the fall.  I was limping for 4-5 days the first week and even this last week took it VERY light on the mileage. It feels fine now- no pain on short or long runs- and I hope to be back to building mileage this week.

9/17- 3 miles
9/22- 10 miles

Pictures from my run out and back over the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday:

Weekly Mileage 9/8/13 / Wunderlich

9/3- 4 miles
9/4- 6 miles
9/6- 3 miles
9/8- 10 miles

Total: 23 miles

I ended my mileage this week with a beautiful 10 mile trail run in Wunderlich County Park in Woodside, California.  I definitely did some walking on the way up as it was a pretty even split of 5 miles uphill and 5 miles downhill with an elevation change of 1591 ft.  Good practice for those Big Sur hills!  I caught a root again on the downhill and banged up my knees pretty good- we'll see how they feel tomorrow.  The view was worth it:

Lake Merritt

Yesterday, my friend and I ran around Lake Merritt in Oakland, California.  It's a little over 3 miles around the lake and just a couple of blocks from BART. We're running a 10k trail race at the end of August together and this was our first run together! It was a very pleasant run- sunny but not hot, live music along the path, and a variety of surfaces.  It started off as smooth concrete, but there was also packed dirt with roots and small gravel. Running on a variety of surfaces is great for conditioning bare feet.  Last year, when I was preparing for my half-marathon, I ran 14 miles in training on sidewalks and thought that was plenty to condition myself for the race. Ha! I ended up putting on my Vibrams at mile 9 or so because the sheer variety of surfaces I had run over- packed dirt with pine needles, slab rock, large gravel, roots, and rocks had done a number on my soles.  That combined with an over 1900 ft. elevation gain and hot temperatures made for a tough race. I hope to condition my feet a little better for the upcoming 10k and have a little more fun with the race as a result. Barefoot running is awesome but it is even more awesome when you can run a race pain-free!

Lake Merritt Oakland, CA

Mileage

In between school floodings and runny noses, I have only been able to run on the weekends lately. I am counting down the days to Daylight Savings Time and longer days.

2/9/13- 3.12 in 34:13
2/10/13- 6.14 in 1:07:52

I ran on the Bay Trail today, a paved trail that runs all over the Bay area: