other dreaminess

There was a certain dreamlike quality to the Sycamore Canyon run last weekend. This was partly due to lack of sleep and the early morning and the fog, but there were also some weird moments out there. I kept coming across the same hikers out on the trail. I’m pretty sure I saw one hiker three separate times, and I saw at least two other groups of hikers twice. It seemed a little strange to me at the time but I couldn’t spare the mental energy to figure it out. There are a few loop trails in the area and I’m not too familiar with them so it must have just been that they were taking a shorter loop and we were running into each other again, but it was a little creepy, too, in a “room for one more…” kind of way…

short recurring dream

I had a dream last night and as I was remembering it this morning I realized that I’ve had it a few times before. The details don’t seem too important and anyway I don’t remember them but the main action is me riding my bike. (I have biking dreams all the time. The last few months it seems like I’ve been biking every night.) I’m on the fixed gear and suddenly I realize that I’m coasting. It hasn’t morphed into a freewheel, but somehow the cog has come loose and is allowing me to spin backwards. That’s it.

Sycamore Canyon Run

Sycamore Canyon (Pt Mugu State Park) is really a beautiful place. So many of my native plant friends were out today along the course – and many of them were flowering. Rosa, Artemisia, Datura, Salvia, Achilles, Trichostema, Bacharis, Coreopsis, Lupine, Lotus… to name just a few. Oh, and of course, Platanus racemosa – aka Sycamore. Check out Las Pilitas for plant info. The rolling green meadows behind the coastal ridge were probably the high light for me - beautiful California, the way it used to be before we came and planted houses all over it.

The run was tough but good. I did my fair share of walking along the uphill sections of the route but ended up with an almost okay time anyway – a little under four hours. By about mile 17 I started getting some pretty solid belly cramps and was ready to be done. Other than that, my body held up pretty well through the race. Even though this was a more challenging course in terms of elevation gain than my usual long run I feel pretty good now. I was downing Gatoraide pretty much the whole time and I think that helped. We were lucky that the cloud cover held for most of the run. It would have been a lot harder with a hot sun above.

I was really impressed by the 50K runners. There is no way I could have done that last 20, but they just kept trucking along. Way to go.

After the race I reclined in the car while I went through my typical, wacky, body-going-into-shock symptoms like haunted legs and an interesting new cycle that goes like this: take a sip of water, get goose bumps all over my legs, yawn… I repeated this odd cycle dozens of times before I finally managed to crawl out of the car and nibble some pretzels and M&M’s at the finish area.

The drive home was murder on my right IT band as I tried to navigate through Sunday afternoon traffic. That was probably the most painful experience of the day.

I just might do this run again someday. Next time I want to be better about mingling with the other runners, though. I felt bad about missing the opportunity to hang with my fellow runners, but I was pretty wrecked. There were a couple high-fives out on the course, though, that meant a lot to me.

30K

I signed up this morning for the Sycamore Canyon run in Malibu for Sunday morning. The distance is about equivalent to the long runs I’ve been doing for the past several months but there will be a lot more elevation gain over the course – around 3000 feet compared to my long route which is maybe like 500 to 700.

I always get super nervous before these types of events. There are so many unknowns. I’ve never run on those trails before although I’ve been camping in the campsite where the trailhead starts so that gives me some idea of what the area is like.

My plan is to take it really easy and drink lots of fluids and eat good foods these last couple days before the run and then just carry that right into the run itself – take it easy, walk up the steep stuff, don’t worry about time but keep moving, drink, drink, drink…

Right now the weather forecast for Sunday in Malibu looks pretty nice – Low 50 High 70. There was a thick marine layer out here against the foothills this morning that lasted until around 9am. Hopefully that cooling fog will last a little longer out in Malibu this Sunday.

cyclo-computers

I love having a little computer on my bike that tells me how far I’ve ridden. I don’t have a computer for each of my bikes, though, so I often return from a ride and head to gmap-pedometer to map my ride. I find it rather interesting that even on a fairly long and complex route our minds are able to recall every turn we made along the way. It’s kind of fun to relive the ride in this way. But it’s also a pain.

I went on a long ride this evening on “Totally Eighties” which does not have a bike computer. Although I had a vague idea of how far I had ridden I didn’t have a little digital number reminding me from the handlebar. So I kept riding and riding. As I was getting close to home I came across a group ride I’ve been meaning to attend for a few weeks. So I rode with them for a while. Then finally I made it home and checked it all out on the big computer and what do you know… I rode fifty miles…oops.

If I had known how many miles I’d ridden already, I never would have tacked on the extra miles with the group. I would have said to myself, “isn’t 30 miles quite enough for a normal person to be riding through the evening?” But 30 wasn’t enough and I was glad to ride with some fun folks for a while. So, maybe, sometimes, that high-tech stuff just weighs us down.

back on track

I didn’t run at all last week. It was a bit of a new year’s resolution for me this year to have no zero mile running weeks, so I’ll have to do better about that.

I did get some riding in though and even passed a pretty nice mileage milestone (see sidebar.)

I did get back out running again this evening. Just a short one but it felt good and it’s nice to be back on track.

After the run I went riding around the Rose Bowl loop on Masi. She’s finally all tuned up right. It takes me a long time to do the fine tuning on a bike but it does feel good to do it myself.

While at the Rose Bowl I saw a guy running with an Olympic bar bell with 10 pound plates on his shoulders. Pretty amazing way to train. I saw him several times on the loop, as we were going in opposite directions, and at one point he was doing military presses as he ran!!!!

I’m tempted (thanks Evan) to run an 18er this weekend in Sycamore Canyon … It’s a bit of a long drive (maybe 60 miles) just to go running, but I feel like I could use some time with the community…

just in case you’ve been holding your breath…

siamo solo buoni amici...

con affetto

the lonely bicycle

I have a mild cold. I could still ride or run or go to a birthday party this afternoon, but probably not all three - probably just one. I don’t really crave running right now, though, so maybe a ride. This cold is narrowing it all down for me…

The cold asks: What is important for you right now? What do you want to spend your limited energy on… an afternoon with friends at a birthday bbq or a ride on a cool grey afternoon with yourself, a wool flannel, and light steel road bike?

What I’m realizing is that all I really want to do is go for a ride even if it takes all the life out of me and keeps me from the party…

another spring

First Poppy of the year…

There’ve been some other Poppies already, but this one was the first to bloom in my backyard a couple days ago.

The weather has felt very coastal lately – morning overcast, sun in the afternoon, cool, wet air at night…

eighteen to infinity

…an hour from home… at a point where it makes perfect sense to turn around and go back – plenty of physical exercise having been achieved - the route crosses a boundary… the geography shifts… across that last road into deeper wilds - a transition away from the world to which we are so accustomed – the metaphysical peers in… a jogger becomes a human, moving over the earth… running with only water (again! no food!) you know about the potential for a crash, but just don’t care… you keep running on… finally turning around, everything melts… the sun has set but the sky is still lit with bright light blue and passing pink puffy clouds… you’re in the happy high spirit world… the world of darkness closes in for the return trek… but your stride is light and you keep moving… there is no pain… you are glad for all those miles that led you to this place… the struggle has turned into stride and you’re left with a fleeting reminder… a simple, deep knowledge… of a quiet evening on the earth… you keep running on…

26 vs. 700

For a long time now I’ve believed that 700c wheels were larger in diameter than 26in and therefore created some slight advantage for speed or endurance. I understand that the rim itself actually does have a larger diameter (622mm vs. 559mm) but I finally got around to measuring the diameter from tire tread to tire tread and they’re nearly identical when comparing a 700x23 and a 26x2… both are about 68cm. The height of the 26x2 tire makes up the difference in rim diameter. When I switched to 26x1.5 for a brief while a couple years ago my gearing was thrown way up and my pedals started scraping – the 1.5 just wasn’t tall enough. There are probably still advantages to the 700 wheel – primarily weight savings, I suppose. Why this was my first thought as I woke up this morning I don’t know. Maybe because I slept with my ankle reflector on again…

little things along the way

Yesterday I kept feeling this little splinter in the heel of my sock. I could never locate it to remove it. Today (with new socks) the splinter was still there. So it must be in my foot. But there’s no splinter that I can see. So it must not be a splinter. It must be an injury. I didn’t notice it on this evening’s run. I don’t know really what this kind of injury could be. Perhaps a tiny little strain in the Achilles. My heels have been kind of tight lately. Actually everything has been tight. IT band, too. Somehow these little injuries don’t seem to be bothering me much. My speed and form and miles are decent. Little injuries seem okay. The trouble, I guess, is knowing what is little and about to be forgotten and what is little and getting worse. I’ve been a little unfocused in my running lately and this probably leads to little injuries, too. Not caring about stretching and nutrition and regularity. I’m not sure I’m too into races anymore (not that I ever really was – 1 or 2 a year) so staying focused and on a timeline is challenging. Luckily, I just remembered one of my personal goals – run from home to Brown and back. I’ve run the trail. I’ve run to the trail. I’ve biked to the trail and then run the trail but to run it all at once would be something. It would be simple and free and local – see that mountain up there… run there and back…