Friday, March 13, 2009

Painful run and no-so-painful bike

Yesterday I ran 10.5 miles in the hills. My "regular" run, down to Montclair village via Temescal, up Shepherd Canyon to Skyline, and back home over Grizzly. Granted there is some serious climbing here, but distance-wise it isn't that far. Not for someone preparing for a marathon.

I was quite surprised at how sore I was afterwards. Especially my calf muscles. They felt like someone chewed on them for a while. I'd thought for sure that after my 100 K run week, I would be up for any challenge. However, a careful look at the calendar reveals no hill running for almost a month. I guess hills are different from treadmills. This run is also a lot longer than the one hour sessions I did during the 100K week.

Today I rode about 30 miles on my mountain bike. I went to Redwood, rode the West trail and went down to the stables. Today was the first time I rode the hill to the observatory. I had never managed to do it, and surprisingly enough I did not find it all that hard. Go figure!

From the stables on Redwood road I went to McDonald. There I climbed the trail that turns into a creek bed after the rains. Although it hasn't rained for a week, there was still plenty of runoff. It wasn't really bad but there were a few sections that were extremely slippery and muddy. I had to walk one steep part because there was no traction whatsoever.

I continued on to the stone bridge and up the grade to the water-fountain. There I filled up and turned around  and rode to the Bort meadow parking lot. I took the road down and then up to the top of Pinehurst, where the the East side trail is. It felt good but I was spent when I got home.

I am quite tired now with faint aches in my calves as I sit here, but overall it things are pretty good.


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