James Irvine- Miner's Ridge

Last week's long run was on Thursday. This post is almost a week late and out of order from the previous two.

Prairie Creek Redwoods Park headquarters was nearly vacant when we pulled in. Compared to summertime crowds, it was all but deserted. I was still feeling a little off when we set out on our run. We began climbing immediately, to the top of Miner's Ridge on the James Irvine trail. The climb wasn't steep enough to stop me from running, but it was unrelenting for a solid four miles and for awhile I wondered if I was still that over-trained. Our path wove through thousands of new growth trees. Only stumps of the original Redwood forest remained. This area had been completely ravaged by 20th century loggers and evidence of that was everywhere.

As we went down off of the ridge, we descended into an entirely different kind of forest. Douglas Fir, I remembered Shaina telling me when I did this same route with her and her husband, Ryan. I'm not much for identifying things, but Shaina is a ranger for one of the local state parks and is absolutely enamored by all living things in the park, big and small. She always knows what the name of something is. The stark contrast in tree type must indicate that we're getting closer to the ocean, Matt commented. The underbrush was dense and impenetrable. Just then, a giant furry butt came into view. Moose! I thought to myself. To me, its giant brown rear end looked just like a calf moose. Then a head turned and a giant set of antlers came into view. A buck Roosevelt Elk, staring back at me. We sized each other up. I shouted out to him, "Are you going to move or do I have do jump over you?" He looked at me for a few moments and then moved off into the thick mess of bushes. Sorry for the poor photo quality. Here's a blurry elk.

We quickly descended to a car road that paralleled the beach. This road would lead us to Fern Canyon. Round trip to Fern Canyon via our running trail would be just about 10 miles. Despite the fact that the road crosses two small, knee-deep streams, there still was a surprising amount of traffic. It's amazing how many perfectly able-bodied people go out to parks and will drive as much as they possibly can to see things.

Matt and I took a short break at a picnic table on the beach. We brought only about two packets of fruit snacks apiece and I was wishing we had brought lunch. The sunshine and calm winds were almost unreal. When this area is cloudless and calm, it really is breathtaking.

We ran along the Fern Canyon trail. The parks had removed the bridges from the stream. Without bridges, this hike is almost entirely hiking up a small stream. Here is where we saw all the other people.

Men were standing in the water creating paths of stepping stones and helping their wives across. Matt just looked at me and smiled, "We're going in, right?" I guess him carrying me through the canyon was out of the question, huh? It was a lot of fun running through the flowing water, splashing each other along the way. The icy water was wonderful on my feet. I never realize how sore my feet get until the aching suddenly goes away. We paused to take a few pictures. I lost the bite valve on my camelbak hose, only realizing it when I bent over and warm water trickled down my calf. We spent some time looking for it, finally deciding it was a lost cause.
On the return trip along the Miner's Ridge trail, I mentioned to Matt that I was thinking of skipping the Redding Marathon. After being on a steady training plan for nearly 18 months, I felt like it was sort of stifling my natural tendencies. On a plan, I find myself limiting my running more because I want to be fresh for the rest of the weekly workouts. And as anyone who has been restricted in something for a long period of time, I felt the need to binge. I wanted the freedom to run 40 miles over two or three days and then take the rest of the week to do no exercise at all. I wanted to be able to run, bike, and hike all in the same day without worrying how it would affect my other workouts in the week.
Matt agreed. He wants to go without a training schedule for awhile because he feels like running is getting stale for him. He misses hiking and backpacking.

We finished the run agreeing that we needed a break after Two Cities next month. Not a break in running, but a break in structure. 14 miles in the Redwoods on a gorgeous fall day.

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Susitna 50K fits perfectly in our plans because it will give us reason to drive to the snow and play. It will get us the hiking Matt wants, without the dip in fitness that I was worried about. We will have no structure to it other than going out and spending our weekends playing in the snow, building a game plan for our outfits and adventure for that frozen run in the wilderness.