Never Gets Old

View from the top of Mt. Tam looking back towards San Francisco.

Mt. Diablo in the distance. Taller by a 1000 ft. or so, hot during the summer and less tree cover. Races there have left me depleted for days. Much respect for that mountain and those trails.

One of my favorite places and the view from here never gets old. Sometimes there is no view and that's good too. In the early days of my involvement in the sport of ultra I used to run here from my apartment in the city and back. I'd do it once every 6 weeks or so and depending on the route it would take 10-12 hours, approximately 50-60 miles. I don't do it anymore. These days my long runs hover around 6-7 hours but are more frequent.

After a great day of running trails at WTC 50k it was just as good to run the trails of Marin. This was the next day after the race, Sunday. Unless it's a 100-miler I noticed that these days I don't get really sore until the afternoon after - DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). So if I can sneak in another run the best time would be within that 24 hour window.

I went to church that Sunday morning and some friends invited me to go hiking with them. I don't really hike because when I hit the trails all I want to do is run. So I asked if I could come along so I could run and they were nice enough to take me along. We started on a trailhead that I wasn't familiar with. There are many ways to the top but I get stuck using the same trails. It was nice to have that "I'm not sure where I'm going" feeling in a place I'm familiar with. Curiously the 6 or so miles to the top, mostly fire road at a gentle grade, felt really, really good. I chased down a few bikes and played tag with another, having a conversation with him every time we passed each other. The trip down was hard and slow with the muscles tight. By the time I got back down to the bottom the sun was going down and sure enough I was already feeling very sore and stiff. I stretched under the trees while waiting for the crew to finish their hike.

Besides running I didn't get a lot done last weekend as you can imagine but the world isn't more of a terrible place because of the things I left undone. What a great weekend of running trails and after taking the following Monday off and an easy recovery run on Tuesday I've been back hitting the miles feeling stronger. Speed is down but to be expected after a race but that too will come back. Next race isn't until the end of April. I had two months of hard training heading into WTC, the next race should be better since I'll have even more time on the trails by the time it comes around.

TGIF! Hope you all have a great weekend.