My longest run EVER

There I was, dressed head to toe in running clothes in the checkout line at the grocery store, clutching nothing but a bag of apple fritters in my hand. The cashier looked me up and down with quiet curiosity. "Running fuel", I explained. She smiled.

I returned home to wake up Matt. Just four hours of sleep after a midnight shift, his green eyes now red with sleepiness. I had left him a home-made elevation profile for our run, about 5,000 ft of gain and equal loss. He left a note beside it:

Nice one, Honey.

Not eating, driving, and taking photos. I took this, parked, in my garage before we drove off.

We had coffee and apple fritters on the 45-minute drive to the state park. This run would mark a few milestones :

At mile 12, my 1,000th mile for the year.
At mile 18, officially covering every maintained trail over 1.0 miles (there are lots of little loops that are less than a mile) in Humboldt Redwoods State Park (and there are about 80 miles of trail).
The last long effort before the taper to our 50K race on August 28.
My longest run EVER!

The bright sunshine blinded me for a moment. It was 2pm and already 75F. I had a feeling that my water supply would not be enough. Matt and I carried an extra bottle to stash at a spot we'd go by twice. Then we set off. The creek trail was covered with visitors. Then we turned onto a more deserted trail and the horse encounters started. Without any posted maps detailing it, we soon discovered that our running route faced directly into the traffic of a horse competition called a Trail Trial. Riders had to complete the course and stop at checkpoints to perform maneuvers and special tricks.

Covered in Liquid Weakness.

Nature's best toilet paper.
Late enough in the season that some of this stuff grew dozens of feet high in the trees and in bushes.

Kicking some Pole Line Trail butt.

I wish we would have known about this ahead of time, because having to stop and pass horses quietly got old FAST. I know proper trail etiquette for horses is to stop to let them pass, but most people stopped and faced their horses away from us and let us go by on the narrow trail. About fifty horses later and dodging mounds and mounds of fresh horse poo, we reached one of the checkpoints. A line behind it had formed with about a dozen horses waiting to perform their trick. Matt and I passed as easily as we could. Most people were nice about it, realizing that a six foot wide trail is hard enough for two-way traffic and we were just making the best of it. One woman, parked right in the middle of the trail left me only a knee-high patch of poison oak to pass through. "Go that way", she instructed from atop her horse. "Oh through the patch of poison oak, great". Then she launched into a whiny lecture about proper etiquette and how I was supposed to let her pass. Umm... she was stopped. I'm not going to wait an hour for all those horses to pass. I brushed it off and kept on going. Most people were nice, but this woman made me want to smack her horse in the ass on the way by. Matt said we should volunteer for the race next year as the "Runner obstacle" and judge the riders on horsemanship and courtesy on the trail. That woman would definitely have failed in my book.

By mile six, we hit the Pole Line trail and finally split from the horse course. Alone at last. And free from the mountains of manure. We began our long climb to the high point in our run, at just under 3,000 ft. The temperature climbed to 85F and climbing in the direct sunlight was like a slow march into the sun. We walked most of the way up. Period cramps (tmi! I know) and the steep incline stopped me several times. Doubled over in pain and completely drenched in the heat, I nearly cried.

Heat + cramps + long climbs = grrrrrrrr

Matt thought I was just having trouble with the heat, but when I explained the girly problems too, he just nodded and didn't ask any more questions. Typical man. I anticipated cramps and brought a small bag of Ibuprofen. It is generally thought to be dangerous to run while taking pain killers, but just this once wouldn't hurt. Within half an hour, I was feeling better.

Snakes. Me no likey.

Miles 6-12 were an unrelenting uphill battle. A bee swarmed around my head. I am terrified of bees. (I got stung 20 times on the top of the head when I was seven and have been terrified ever since.) After a freak out, screaming, and a mad dash up the mountain, I was okay. The uphill sprint had taken all the energy out of me and I resumed walking. We eventually got high enough that a swift breeze blew and sweat dried on my face, leaving a salty film behind. Shady spots on the trail appeared. It felt amazing.

Finally a runnable spot!!! :)

Nearing mile 18, we hit the turn-around spot on the ridge and began moving downhill. Six miles of wonderfully runnable downhill. The miles flew by. I love doing an out-and-back on hills. It is then that I finally realized why I struggled so much on the uphill.

We stopped at an overlook near mile 20. A soft, golden light cast itself across the nearby hills. The coastal fog began to seep into the valleys. Now, most people don't think fog is exciting. But with Matt, my meteo hubby, it was. He was enamored by the sight of the marine layer encapsulating the landscape. Remarking at how thick it was and how we could actually see it moving closer and closer, he stood there in awe. I thought it was like watching paint dry. But, hey, it makes him happy, so that makes me happy.

Pretty Thunderstorm, complete with anvil.

Marine layer moving in.

Reunited with our stashed water bottle at mile 23, we drank it down in just a few gulps. We rejoined the horse poo trail, but luckily crossed five streams so most of the evidence on our shoes was erased. Dusk was upon us. Animals appeared from the trees to feed. A family of 20 turkeys, a doe with two spotted fawns, and lots of birds that flew away before we could tell what they were. We stopped once for blackberries. Within the blackberry brambles, I found an apple. An apple? These blackberry vines were so aggressive that they had climbed up into and engulfed an entire apple tree. Finally, we returned to the once packed parking lot, our car the lone one, waiting for our arrival. We soaked briefly in Bull Creek before getting into the car to return home. Not half a mile from the parking lot, we came upon a black bear, grazing on the hillside. I stopped and got a few photos of him. I called out to him to get his attention. He was unafraid of my voice and just turned curiously toward the car. I'm glad we weren't out running much later or we might have come face-to-face with him instead.

Teddy.

Training recap:

While I haven't seen much improvement in my pace during this trail running season, the runs we chose had increasingly difficult elevation gains along with the miles. Hopefully adrenaline and rest will produce faster paces in our race. We plan to finish between 6 and 7 hrs, depending on how race day feels. The race has 5,000 ft of elevation gain, just like this run, but it doesn't come all at once.


What I have seen improvement on is my ability to keep on going. It takes about six hours for me to really start to feel tired. Until that point, I can still crank out a run, even if it's slow. That's something I wasn't able to do at the end of our first 20+ mi run this summer.

So, Garmy lost a bit of distance in the redwoods at the beginning and at the end. According to the map, we covered 27.7 miles. (Garmy found just over a marathon's distance.)

The Math :

27.7 miles.
5:59.
12:57/mi.
about 5,000 ft. elevation gain.
about 5,000 ft. loss.

Looking at my 2-mile splits, can you tell which are uphill and which aren't? haha