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:

Skirt 'n Dirt 10k Race Report

This Saturday I ran a really fun trail race called the Skirt 'n Dirt Trail Run in Redwood Regional Park in Oakland, CA.  I ran the 10k distance but there was also a 25k and 50k distance.  I was running with my good friend Liane, it was her first 10k and she did GREAT! It was an all-women's race with a companion race called Stud 'n Mud that ran with us but it was mostly women.  The race organizer, Inside Trail Racing was awesome and I would highly recommend any races organized by them for several reasons:

1) The trail markers were vandalized and volunteers got up super early to fix this so we could have a safe and fun race.  What nice people, right? 

2) They had lightly flavored or unflavored electrolyte drinks instead of Gatorade. They also had plenty of yummy snacks.

3) SWAG. I got a hat, a shirt, a wine glass (right?) and medal. For a 10k this is pretty awesome bang for your registration buck. 

The race is in the Oakland Hills which I have run before during my half-marathon last year during the Cinderella Trail Run.   They are absolutely beautiful trails and also have plenty of rocks that make barefooting not the most fun. So, I strapped on my Vibram Fivefinger Bikilas and intending to enjoy the scenery of towering Redwoods instead of picking my way around rocks on the trail. The Bikilas worked well enough except for a weird bruising in the joint of one of my toes. I'm looking around at other trail shoes without toe pockets.

I arrived a little later than when I had agreed to meet up with my friend so I warmed up running around between the check-in table and the bathrooms before I found her.  We started off at 8:30 am. after the 25k and 50k runners started at 8:00 a.m. This might have been a little late for a summer run but 90% of the run was in delightful heavy shade.  I had checked out the elevation profile and was a little intimidated- it was "only" 850 ft. elevation change for the 10k but 600 of that was in the first 2.5 miles and the 500 ft. climb from mile 1.5-2.5 was... challenging to say the least.  I need to run more hills.

Took a couple of blurry pictures with my phone while catching my breath on the climb. 

However, after that initial beast of a climb it was mostly downhill from there!  It was a pretty small race so I was running alone most of the time with just a couple glimpses of a person in front of and behind me.  There were a lot more roots on this trail than on my other trail runs and that proved to be my quite literal downfall in the last mile of the race.  My right foot caught a root and I went down on my hands and my right knee.  I hopped up and hobbled the rest of the way not sure how bad it was hurt.  The medical technician wrapped it with ice and although I've got a nasty bruise, a swollen knee and a slight limp today it is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I think walking around after the race helped the potential stiffness.

My time was 1:14:06- not a personal best of course but my personal best for 10k was on a flat road and this was a hilly trail so they're really not comparable.  I did come in 3rd in my age group which was my first time placing in a race!  Great race overall and it is getting me pumped for my Fall Halfs! 

Weekly Mileage ending 8/25/13

I cut way back last week because I have started back to school!  It was technically supposed to be a cutback week anyway after 5 weeks of increasing mileage but really I was just exhausted and cut out two runs.  Back to it this week, focusing on hills and increasing weekly mileage again. 10k trail race on Saturday!

8/20- 4 miles
8/22- 4 miles
8/25- 8 miles

Total: 16 miles

Weekly Mileage ending 8/18/13

8/13- 4 miles
8/14- 5 miles
8/15- 4 miles
8/18- 12 miles

Total Mileage: 25 miles, all barefoot

I slacked off a little this week by not running my pre-long run short run on Saturday.  I'll probably be taking it easy on the mileage, or at least not increasing my weekly mileage much, until my 10k on August 31.  After that I will focus on getting to long runs in the 14-16 mile range until I have run my Fall Halfs and then its officially BIG SUR TRAINING TIME!

I also hit 1000 miles logged on MapMyRun, the app and website I use to track my runs.  I started in late March 2011 with Couch to 5k.  It took me an hour an a half to run/walk a 5k when I first started and today I ran 12 miles in 2 hours- so I've definitely made some progress!

Weekly Mileage Ending 8/11/13

8/6- 3 miles in Vibram Fivefinger Bikilas
8/7- 5 miles in VFF Bikilas
8/8- 4 miles in VFF Bikilas
8/10-3 miles barefoot
8/11- 10 miles barefoot

Total: 25 miles (12 in Bikilas, 13 barefoot)

I guess this week was a little bit of an experiment to see if I could easily switch between minimalist shoes and barefoot.  My arches were still tender and bruised in the beginning of the week from the Sibley Volcanic Preserve trail run so I used the Bikilas until they were mostly healed.  The collar of the shoes are a little tight, I'm not sure if that will stretch out and be more comfortable because I've put less than 50 miles on those shoes in the year or so I've had them.  Going back to a cushioned shoe, even a minimally cushioned one like the Bikila, allows me to run faster, easier and fly down hills.  It also makes my ankles hurt a little more than barefoot running and I've been having twinges in my right knee this week.  I think I'll definitely still use the Bikilas on technical trails and when I want to keep my mileage up but my soles are bruise or injured.  However, running 10 miles barefoot this week in Golden Gate Park felt a lot better than the short runs I've been doing in shoes.  Next week is Week 1 of my Half-Marathon Training plan.  I'm shooting for at least the ZombieRunner Halloween Half on November 2, but also probably the San Jose Rock N Roll Half (that will be a "training run" for ZombieRunner) and possibly the Berkeley Half before I start my training for Big Sur.

Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve Trail Run

Yesterday, I ran 8 miles on a trail in the Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve with Run365, a local running club.

It was a little colder than I expected, because my brain still hasn't grasped the concept of the San Francisco Bay Area microclimates, and I was underdressed for the Oakland hills and the fog that surrounded them. I strapped my Vibram Bikilas onto my water belt because I had not run barefoot on a technical trail in over a year and wasn't sure how my soles would hold up. The entire two hours we ran through a blanket of thick fog that hid the vistas as we ran along ridges with steep drop-offs.

There were a variety of surfaces- from packed dirt with layers of dry leaves to mud to rocks.  The dirt and mud were easy as pie and even fun to run on but the rocks left my arches pretty bruised and made me question whether more than 8 miles barefoot on these type of trails was something I even wanted to do.  I love trail running and am going to need to find a balance with possibly training in minimal shoes while running some trails and still getting in barefoot mileage on sidewalks and roads and paved trails. As with most trail running in the Bay area, it was hillier than the moderate hills I usually run on in my neighborhood - we had an elevation change of about 1000 ft. but the beautiful surroundings and chatting with running partners made the miles go by quickly and easily.

I'm not sure we were actually trespassing here, as this sign was on the road gate and not on the pedestrian one.  Either way, I can assure you we weren't a band of jerks littering the watershed with Gu packets. I don't eat Gu anyway.

Pictures of my feet about 3 miles into the run and again after I drove home.

Photos courtesy of my friend Dolores N., a pacer with the RUN365 group.

Weekly Mileage ending 8/4/13

7/30- 3 miles
7/31- 5 miles
8/1- 4 miles
8/3- 3 miles
8/4- 8 miles

Total: 23 miles

 My long run this week was a trail run with a local running group at the Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve. I will put up a post about this trail as soon as I get pictures from my running partner! Even though the trail was challenging for my soles (mainly due to sharp rocks), it reminded me how much I love trail running!