Winter Bonita
Since we were spending a winter escape week in Orange County I decided to get in a day of fishing in San Diego Bay since I hadn’t made it down there last year when we were in the area. My expectations were a bit low compared to numerous trips in the past since it was January and there had been a lot of cold weather up until yesterday afternoon. I met Peter Piconi of the SoCal Fly Fishing at 8:00 at the Glorieta Bay launch and quickly got loaded up and off the dock.
Wild Skagit Steelhead
After last year’s not so hot year of fishing I decided to start out 2013 right and set up some trips. First plan of action was to get on the Skagit again as fishing had been good lately and some wild fish were showing up as early as December. I had originally scheduled the trip for last week in the deep freeze but happened to whack my head the day before and needed to rest and re-scheduled. That turned out to be a good thing as the artic air vanished and I got to fish on a warmer, cloudy day with drizzle turning to rain as the day went on.
Winter was the key word as I awoke to temps in the low 20’s the morning of the annual Bridle Trails Winter Running Festival. The forecast for the start wasn’t much better, maybe highs in the mid-30s by 3:00. I was just glad I opted for the 5 mile distance this year, I’ll get done before it gets dark and the temps start dropping like a rock again. The 50k runners were going to be in for a long, cold night.
Lunas v.s. Hokas
Sometime after our Arizona/Utah road trip last October I managed to inflame my peroneus brevis tendon attachment to the fifth metatarsal bone and this thnig has been dogging me ever since. I took an entire month off running and tried natural (Hammer Tissue Rejuvenator & Scott Jurek’s Starburst Anti-Inflamatory Smoothie) remedies as well as good old Vitamin-I with little success. X-Rays show no stress fracture and I really did not want to do the course of oral steroids that were prescribed so I just took it easy. After a month I was going crazy and began using a Precor Open Stride machine at the gym to keep up aerobic conditioning without impact. Then I began running again and I noticed that it really didn’t get any worse running or any better not running so I started working back up to an average 5 mile daily run.
2012 was a tough year for me when it came to running. I started out with a knee issue that had me totally out for over a month and really not running my usual miles for about three months. I also ended the year with a tendon problem in my foot which had me totally out for a month and, again, mostly out for three months. This all meant that I really ran for about six months this year when it comes right down to it and only put in 675 miles which is about half of what I ran last year.
Last year I had wanted to do a snowshoe event after having to run in my snowshoes a few times locally but one thing led to another and I never made it. This year when the Snowdog Events calendar was announced I registered right away for the Jingle Bells run to be held at the Sun Country Golf Course outside of Cle Elum. I figured it would be a great way to wrap up the racing season since I had to miss the Deception Pass 25k due to injury. Since my foot tendon is still giving me a bit of grief I registered for the 5k run figuring I could endure 5k of pretty much anything while 10k could be a bit much still since I haven’t gone more than 4 miles on trail or machine for months. Continue reading
Start of Dash Point Marathon - photo by Steve Sanders
I ran the half marathon last year at Dash Point and remember it being harder than it should have been given the specs of the run. This year I decided to sign up for the full marathon anyway because it fit in my schedule at about the time I would be ready for a marathon. We previewed the course the week before and, again, I found it harder than it seemed like it should have been. Four laps, each with about 650′ of elevation gain shouldn’t be that hard but this course has stairs, log steps, some very steep short sections and no piece of straight trail longer than about 30 yards so it is indeed harder than it ‘should’ be. I also wasn’t totally sure I would be able to finish as one day in my taper I did a 4 mile/2600′ climb that caused my left hip to hurt like crazy. I decided to just take a full week off running, do a light run to be sure I wasn’t in pain and then go for it figuring I could drop out at the half point if needed.
Last year the Cougar Half (OK, let’s call it what it is – the Cougar 13.7 mile) was one of the harder runs I’d done, harder even than the Watershed Marathon. I remember getting to the final aid station around the time I expected to be done and finding I had three more miles and one more grueling climb to deal with, it was a bit disheartening. I vowed not to do it again.
Nearing the finish - photo by Yumay Chang
It was Thursday and I had to run anyway so why not sign up for the Evergreen Trail Runs Soaring Eagle event that evening. After running 11+ tough miles on Tuesday at Rattlesnake I decided the 5-mile option was definitely a good choice for distance and with the dry weather and Soaring Eagle not being a mud-hole the Luna Leadvilles would finally be perfect there. In fact, there were three people wearing Luna sandals at the event including Scott from Luna who I had met at the factory.
At the top of the 15k
I was going to be in SoCal the for a few weeks in early July so I decided to look up a trail run to do in place of the Cougar 10-mile event on the 7th. The Harding Hustle fit the bill perfectly, about the same distance at 9.3 miles but with more elevation at 2400′ plus it was going to be HOT instead of running in the rain like I had been doing. The plan was to run it with Catherine’s cousin Tony but he came up with an injury and had to pull out but I decided to go ahead and do the run myself.