Monserate Moment

On Tuesday, I climbed Monserate. For all of its beautiful Italian name, I would venture to say that it is easily the most grinding mountain that I train on. Located about 20 yards from the freeway, its an old hardscrabble eroded trail that climbs 1200 feet in 1.9 miles. It is surrounded by avocado farms, and the whole way up, I have to crank up my radio up to 11 to drown out the trucks on the freeway. When you get to the top, I'd like to say that the whole horizon opens up, with stunning views from Palomar to the ocean available. Instead, essentially you look down into some guy's pool. I've never even seen a hot chick sunbathing next to it. Even Jerry Schad has nothing nice to say about this trail.

Having said all that, I love to train on it. It is hardass. There's no flowers, no wildlife, no distractions. Just hot climbing. Bring it.

Did an up and back during the middle of the day on the way back from a meeting, which is always nice to break it up. Did the climb in 32 minutes which is a good sign. Was going to do a double, but duty called at work, so had to hustle back after just one trip. Made up for it by doing a good hour with Gator in the AM at a decent tempo, then 2:15 in the western fortuna hills including the Fortuna double north and south, shepardson canyon, and a bushwack to the top of Portabello hill. The highlight may have been finding a small horned lizard, my second in a week. These little guys are hard to find, so that was a good spot. Still no good pics however.

Run tonight felt pretty good. It was much cooler for some reason (only low 70's), so my frozen water didn't melt, leaving me pretty thirsty. My latest trick before runs has been nibbling on pretzels to up my salt intake to avoid cramps. So far, so good. I've felt a little full, but no cramps at all, so I'm going to stick with it for now. I'll leave the chia seeds for Scotty.

A lovely view from about 1/4 up Monserate. This was taken in 2006 just after everything burned, making it even more lovely than it is now . . .

The beautiful commanding view of the water tank from the top of Monserate.

Mission Trails Hero, Part 2

So, my goal on Sunday, after two days of partying with my favorite pseudo super heroes and manga loving perverted old men was to crank out 3 laps of my course. Unfortunately, with guests in town, I didn't get out there until 1:40 PM. By that time, the temps were in the mid-90's. Gulp. So I loaded up my pack with 4 bottles and off I went. I was at the saddle in 35 minutes, which is my first goal, but things started to go downhill from there. With the heat from the clay soil baking my face like a piece of tandoori chickent, my legs got heavy and my bottles got emptier. I believe I had the early symptoms of heat sickness, getting lighthead and nauseous. My pace slowed to a crawl as I forced myself over South Fortuna and down the backside through Oak Canyon to the car. Ah, sweet AC. I had gone through 100 oz of liquid in 2 hours and 20 min.

With 60 oz . of water left, having spent 20 min bringing my temps down in the AC, I headed out again, with the temperature having dropped to a chilly 89 degrees. The second lap actually went better than the first. I made it around again in the same time, 2 hours 20 min., which tells me that a lot of that first lap was problems with the heat, not my legs, so that was good.

My adventure this time was on the second lap. As I came through Oak Creek Canyon, I ran into a lady and her dog. The woman was obviously upset and kept shifting from one foot to another. "There's a snake up there," she said, "and it won't move."
"What kind?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said. Since she didn't say rattlesnake, I figured it was probably a king snake or gopher snake coming out. Wrong. On the thinnest section of trail in the whole park sat a 2 foot ornery rattler, easily the orneriest one I've ever come across. The woman said she had thrown some rocks at it. Well, again, rattlers move when disturbed, so she must have hysterically chucked some gravel at it and missed.

I'll take care of this, I figured, picking up a baseball sized rock. An underhanded lob and PLOP it landed right on his midsection. The snake did not budge. I couldn't believe it. I picked up another and threw it with some velocity, nailing it again. Again, it held its position, rattle going full speed. There was no way around this guy either. The trail was probably 18 inches wide, and he was smack in the middle of it. We could have gone back over a hill, but I thought I could take care of it.

Looking around, I found a dead tree branch, about 4 foot long with some branched at the end. I picked it up and used it as a snake handling stick, entangling the snake in the twigs at the end and then lifting him off the trail. As I did so, he struck 4 TIMES at the branch, the whole thing shaking each time with the violence of his bite. Finally, I used the stick to trap the snake and urged the lady to come through while I still had control.

Unfortunately, the lady had freaked out by this point and froze right behind me.
"How sure are you that you have it?" she asked.
"Well, ninety-five percent sure." Wrong answer. She wouldn't budge. Finally, I picked the snake up again and forced it another two feet up the hill, but I could see him squirming.
"Lady," I said, "this is it. Now or never." She finally went behind me as I used the stick and my body to shield her and her dog. Then I left that crabby snake to himself and picked up my run home with some extra pep in my step.

Never a dull moment at Mission Trails. Tomorrow will be a double ascent of Monserate, which is 1200 feet of gain over a little less than 2 miles, then a run down the ridge, a few hundred more feet of up just for a kick in the pants, then all the way down to start one more time. Think it will be a good one. A lot like Fred's, and it will be hot, but I've done it before, and its not too bad, just steady. Again, good practice for Fred's and the rest of the race. Wednesday will be speed work, probably in the canyon, while Thursday will be an easy day. Loose plan is to get up to the mountains on Sunday for a San Gorgonio climb. We'll see how that goes.

Two laps!

Finally, two laps! As a reminder, each lap was about 1600 feet of climbing and 9.3 miles. My goal was to do the first lap in 2 hours and to do the second lap in enough time to equal 25 miles in 6 hours. My general plan is to do the first Teton lap in 6 hours, and try to get 8 hours in each subsequent lap. That would be 30 hours, which I think is not going to happen. I think I'll be a little over 8 hours at least, but if I can get the first lap in 6 hours, that means that I have to run about 20 minute miles to put me in at 31 hours. That would be pretty sweet and certainly plausible.

Anyways, to meet that pace, 25 miles in 6 hours, I needed to be able to do the first lap in about 2 hours and the second lap by 4:25 (figuring that I will need to do about 14 minute pace). It was a bit cooler than it has been (only 83 at the start) so that helped. I made it to the saddle in 35 minutes, which was about what I had planned. The climb up Fortuna was a grind, but on the way down I saw a San Diego Horned Lizard, which are relatively hard to see. They are getting rarer because their food source, which are native California ants, is disappearing due to competition from invading Argentine Ants. San Diego Horned Lizards won't eat them for some reason. Just fussy I guess. According to the web site where I found this picture, the poor guy pictured below had a honey do list.

The trip down from the saddle went well, and I was back at the truck at 1:55. I took 5 minutes to reload my water and gu's and grab my flashlight. Heading out again, my legs felt all right, and I was on top of the saddle again in the same time it took me to get there on the first lap. Unfortunately, it started to go a little south from there. I really started feeling tired on my next trip up Fortuna, and had to break out the flashlight.

The technical trail at night started to slow me down at night. It was difficult to pick out a good line as there was not a lot of depth perception. As I got to the saddle, there was a group of people coming up in the pitch dark with glow bracelets around their heads and wrists and no lights. I don't know who had the idea to have a rave on top of Fortuna, but I can think of better places. Don't know what kind of sound system they could carry up there . . .

Footing down the saddle was difficult, like skiing in the dark with a penlight, but made it down and stumbled through the tech trail, making it to the road, where I almost got hit by a bat. The run ended with the coyotes calling on Kway Paay. Total time: 4:15, 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Had it not been nightime technical trail, I think I could have shaved another 5 to 10 minutes off of that, so the run was a success.

By the end of the first lap, I was soaking wet. I think I sweat more than anyone I've ever met. So I was changing in the dark parking lot at 9:30 PM when a couple of guys pulled up in a jeep and got more of a full moon than they were expecting. Oops.

Probably no run today to give me some time to recover. I will try to grab a short one in the AM, but want to rest for a 3 lap effort on Sunday . . .

Overdue update!

Man, its been a while. Sorry about that for the 3 or 4 people that actually stop by and spend some time reading this. So it started with my attempt at a double on Thursday. I wanted to do 2 laps of the Mission Gorge course in 4 hours, which I knew would mean 18.6 miles with about 3400 feet of climbing, right on par with the first 2/3 of a loop of the hundred. The run went pretty well, but real life intruded and I had to abort the second loop after making it up to the saddle, but I did the first loop in 1:50 and was on the exact same pace on loop 2. I had to leave off the loop from the saddle through the third climb and South Fortuna, but was able to do the rest and felt strong. Here are some pics looking down the saddle and back up the saddle. They don't call this the wall for nothing! And the footing is extra treacherous with loose DG all the way down so it is more like skiing than running. This was demonstrated all too clearly, but we'll talk about that towards the end of this entry.

Looking up the saddle.

Looking down the saddle. Not a fun run down, as you will read . . .

After that was an easy run to end my training week on that Friday morning just to stretch the legs. Then it was a long trip to Chicago. The drive from Chicago to Holland, Michigan was super boring and full of construction. It was a shrine to orange barrels, although the way back, where you could see all the rusty buildings, power lines, and burned out housing projects was probably worse. Anyways, took Saturday off and Sunday was an easy run with my brother and brother in law up Mount Pisgah, which is a sand dune you used to be able to run up, but now have to take stairs. Lame. Anyways, its about 160 foot climb in a quarter mile up some steps, so it was a good workout with some really fun sandy rolling trails through the woods afterwards.

Mount Pisgah Stairs looking down


Mount Pisgah Stairs looking up

Monday was 1:45 in the canyon with speedwork. Felt good to stretch my legs.

Today was an adventure. I was going to do 2 laps, but was thwarted again. Was a little slow on my first lap, but doing OK when I was coming down off South Fortuna. Suddenly, I saw a red and white helicopter circling North Fortuna which then came straight for me. He looked at me, then flew back towards North Fortuna. Then I started down from the saddle. I was about halfway down when a woman came running up towards me. "Are you the medic?" she asked. "My brother is unconscious and covered in blood." I said I wasn't, but sprinted for the top of the saddle to signal the helicopter. Reaching the saddle, I was able to get the helicopter's attention, and they lowered a guy via a cable. We then made our way to the fallen mountain biker who had gone over his handlebars when he wiped out on the loose DG I had been talking about earlier. We all pitched in to help to get him secured. They then hoisted him out, and I helped bring the bike back to the parking lot, but my 2 lap run was shot again. Hmmm. I'm hoping the karma will help me more than the extra lap would have. The guy looks like he's going to be OK, with just a minor concussion and a lot of road rash. Yikes!

Arriving helicopter.

His sister and friend helping to get him secured.


The guy was messed up with the biggest fat lip I've ever seen and lots of nasty road rash, but still managed to try to smile for his picture. Tough hombre. Nicely done.

Hauling him up to the helicopter . . .

. . . and off to the hospital.

Tarantula!!

Comic-con week. We'll see what goes down running wise. I'll be getting my geek on all week.

Daily Double

I forget what the title is from, but doubled up today, and put myself in jeopardy. Get it? HA!

I am training every day, for several days in a row, because I am going to miss out on a weekend of training. But last night, real life got in the way, so that meant two today to make up. I went out on a rather flat 2 hour tempo run in the canyon in the AM that went remarkably well. However, because it was extra muggy out, by the time I got back, my clothes were all a different color from all the sweat gathered in them. Ringing out my shirt, I was able to almost fill the sink. Cool.

For my afternoon run, I headed out for an easy hour at Mission Trails. The legs took a while to kick in, but then I settled into a slow rhythm. On the way up the Quarry Trail, I saw a guy frozen in place. Looking down, I saw the rattler along the trail between him and me. I would say during summer, I see one a week, either in the canyon or at Mission Trails. Seeing two of us, the sucker realized he was outnumbered and headed back into the bushes. However, this was, as you will see, just part of his master plan.

I continued up over Quarry Hill, then down to the Rim Trail. However, where you had been able to skirt the construction earlier, they had constructed a new fence to stop poachers like me. Jerks. So I decided to retrace my steps back to the car as that was going to be about an hour anyways. As I came back down Quarry Hill, I looked off to the left just as my foot was landing. There in the bushes, at the same place I had saw him before, head sticking out maybe, MAYBE, 3 inches was my friend from earlier who had taken up ambush position in the low lying scrub. He made a strike at me but came up just short. He then high tailed it back into the safety of the bushes. WHEW!

This is my second close encounter with a rattler since living in San Diego. The first came running down the Dripping Springs Trail where a red rattler, fairly rare for San Diego, made a strike, but didn't get his mouth open in time, bouncing instead off my ankle. So far, so good.

Tomorrow night is a double loop of the Mission Gorge 15k, which will be 18.5 miles and 3400 feet of climb. The goal is 4 hours. We'll see.

I owe an NBA post. There's big doings on the horizon. I promise one tomorrow.

Did someone say Daily Double?

Recovery day

Today was an easy recovery run. My quads are totally busted up, which is actually a good feeling as its been a while since I've been really sore. The Cuyamaca Peak fire road is all paved, so running down it twice can definitely put a hurt on. Did a nice bike ride home to loosen up, then met Justin for a run in the canyon. Took a nice, easy pace and then a climb up The Slide. Not much else to report.

Oh, and a shout out to Who?!

Weekend wrapup

Saturday I was thinking I would do something strong, but I wanted to get an actual run in instead of hiking up some ridiculous slope, so I hit the canyon with Gator and did 2 hours with her at a real steady pace. Felt pretty good and Gator, as you can see, was a trooper, especially when we got to the creek and she could cool her little paws off.

Today, I wanted to get some elevation and some climbing, so I headed to Cuyamaca Peak. The fire road is paved, but its 1700 feet of climbing over 2.7 miles, so pretty close to the 1,800 foot 2.8 mile climb up Fred's Mountain. I wanted to get the feel for it, so I went up to start the run, then did some of the course of the San Diego 100, then back to Cuyamaca Peak to get it in again. Temps ranged between 80 and 92 degrees during the 4 hour run. All in all about 3800 feet of climbing over 4:10 total time with a ten minute AC break in the car. Ended up going through 136 ounces of drink and still had bright orange pee. Also went old school, having a sausage mcmuffin for breakfast and then a bottom half of a second (sausage, cheese and half muffin) for a meal before the second climb. Felt pretty strong overall considering conditions such as heat and fatigue from several days of running and such.

Celebrated a good weekend of running with a treat of pizza port, with 2 beers, and a shake for desert. More than I should be eating, especially considering the breakfast, but seemed appropriate today. I'm not all that worried about it. Probably a break even day . . .

Oh, and good wildlife. Saw a flock of wild turkeys, a whip snake, lots of acorn woodpeckers, and a road runner. Pretty sweet.

View from Cuyamaca Road

View from San Diego 100 Course. Both burned in 2007, but the lower slopes of Cuyamaca burned fiercest, leaving a forest of charred skeleton trees.

This is the view going up the lower slopes of Cuyamaca Peak. This lasts about 3/4 of the climb.

This is the last quarter or so, maybe less. Nice and shady, even at noon on a 90 degree day. Great views from the saddle of all of East County and even, on a clear day, to Mexico and the Salton Sea.

Cuyamaca Peak the first time up.


Cuyamaca Peak the Second time up.