Saturday
I ran a 10 mile trail around Iron Mountain last Saturday morning with four members from the San Diego running Meetup. The weather was perfect for running — drizzling/foggy in the morning and throughout the run.
It was one of my hardest runs of the year.
I fell behind of the main group from the start. One of the Meetup members, Mike, had just finished a 100 mile ultramarathon two weeks earlier, so I had no illusions that I would be able to keep his pace. At the first fork, there was no sign so I turned right. The path started going downhill, which confused me as I thought that I was supposed to be running uphill towards the mountain! I kept going, but it looked like I was on the wrong route, until I came back to the fork and realized I had done a loop.
I continued on the path, and it got steeper. There were few rocks, and my breath was hard as I pushed my way uphill in my first super-long uphill run in a while. It wasn’t a continuous uphill like the Torrey Pines park entrance, but rather a windy trail that sometimes dipped down and sometimes was so steep that I had to just stop running and hike. As I climbed up, I kept thinking “this is the easy part, downhill will be the hard part.” I was right about that.
I finally made it to the peak, and caught up with the others. They had been waiting for 15 minutes already! They were talking with a man who was explaining how he trained for an ultramarathon in the 100+ degree weather in the desert. I was amazed.
For several weeks before the race, he would run his long runs on the weekend two or three times up a mountain, in the middle of the day when it was hottest. On weekdays, he would turn up the heater of his car wherever he drove so it reached up to 117 degrees Fahrenheit. He said that when he finally got to the day of the race and stepped out of the car, it felt cool.
Then we started downhill. The others raced ahead of me unbelievably quickly. I tried to keep up. Being unused to the rocks, the dusty trail which caused my feet to slip on rocks, and the intimidating speed of going downhill, I had to slow down. Fortunately, at the forks in the trail the others waited up for me and pointed me in the right direction!
After the run was over my feet were spent, but I felt energized somehow. After a foot long Subway sandwich I had the energy to go for another couple of miles.
So in the afternoon, after a few hours of work, I ran another 6 miles on the trails behind my workplace. And then I did some super-light hiking/walking for another hour at Torrey Pines. By that time, I could barely walk in my shoes and my left foot hurt with every step!
Sunday
Sunday was such a contrast to Saturday. The sky was mostly clear and sunny, and the air was clean.
I took it easy in the morning and then decided to do a beach run in the afternoon. I had a 24 hour break since the previous day’s run, so I thought I could do 5-6 miles easily.
I figured it would be a good chance to start my training so, while I turned the heat up in my car all the way up for the 25 minute ride to Pacific Beach, subjecting myself and my friend Albert to considerable heat. By the time we parked on the street, sweat was dripping off of our faces, shoulders, and down our legs. As I got out of the car, the change in temperature and the sweat evaporating from my body caused me to cool down rapidly, it felt cold outside on such a bright sunny day!
We walked to the beach and I took off my shirt and shoes and socks and ran barefoot on the wet sand. My left big toe had been bothering me for the past few weeks, but the pain generally went away after running for a few minutes.
I kept running and pumped out the miles on my tired legs. I love running barefoot on the beach, with the waves occasionally washing under my feet and softening the sand. The challenges involved are keeping good form, avoiding large clumps of seaweed on the sand and that wash up with the wave, avoiding surfers on the beach, and avoiding kids rushing in and out of the water. I ended up running 7 miles, but I was exhausted by the end.
On Monday, I ran 2 miles in the morning, and 3 in the afternoon, but that was all I could do with the pain in my feet from all of the downhill pounding and the barefoot beach run.
