Notes
Went up to the mountains today with new running friend, Trace, and his coworker (they're both fitness trainers), Milagros, who is apparently an elite female Spartan racer. I guess it's a 16 mile race with 30 upper-body stressing obstacles throughout. She and Trace are both quite physically fit, but running is more of an included an important part of an overall fitness regimen rather than an end-all like it is for me. We parked at a trailhead, ran for about 1.5-2 miles, and then started climbing. We climbed and climbed for most of the next 4 miles, and almost all of it was walking. It was STEEP. We then descended to something called the Devil's marbleyard, which is this steep hillside covered with large rocks and no trees- a very cool sight and the views were great! We hung out there, rock-climbed, ate, and then headed back. All together, this 13 mile run had about 2500 feet of elevation gain, which is more than my whole Maah Daah Hey Marathon will have, so this was a good leg-burner. Very happy that my knee has strengthened considerably and made it through without pain. Felt my calves burning on the ups and my quads burning on the downs.
When going up and flat, I felt myself struggling to run the slow pace that they were running, but when we were going down, they were flying and flapping their arms around like crazy people, and I was struggling to hold on without losing control. In the last couple miles I asked them if I could take off at my pace, and they said yes, so I was able to cruise back to the trailhead. So, after more than 2 hours of running, hiking, and rock-climbing, I picked up the pace and my legs still felt great, and my breathing was good. Brought 2 liters of water and finished it right when I got to the trailhead. Very happy with the body felt today, and I'm ready to try to solo 19-mile trail run next weekend, with running gels and water refill at mile 10. For my marathon, the only place for water refills are miles 11 and 20, so I have to be prepared.