Woodside 50K - Woodside, CA
I love running the trails of Huddart Park in Woodside, one of my favorite training sites. Also, I won the short course there a few times as well. So, despite my injured calf, I decided to run this race anyway, treating it as a training run. Little did I know that I would more than get my money's worth as it turned into a 40 mile training run.
The sky was ominously cloudy, but it wasn't raining at the start as Wendell issued his announcements.
I took it easy at the start and chatted a bit with Chuck Wilson and his girlfriend Christine as we ran out Richards Road.
Then moving up the familiar climb of Chapparal and Crystal Springs to the Skyline Trail I ran with Taylor Valentino for a while. I hit the Kings Mountain aid station at mile 5 around 1 hour and, in the spirit of a training run, chatted with the heroic volunteers there for a bit.
From there, we continued on the rolling Skyline Trail to the Bear Gulch aid station. We continued on Skyline Trail, then down Alambique to the Bear Gulch trail, which was supposed to start a loop. However, I missed the turn for Redwood Trail which would take us back. Eventually I figured out that I had gone too far, and attempted to take some turns to get back. I spent about 90 minutes (conservatively I'm guessing 9 miles) on this escapade before finally finding the orange ribbons again.
At this point I fell in with Tom Kaisersatt who supplied me with some much needed snacks (potstickers yum!) Tom's good spirits buoyed mine, quite demoralized by the sidetrip. We stuck together for the next two aid stations.
But once we hit Chinquapin trail I had to have the fun of bombing down the hill. I ended up finishing around 7:23, something close to last. Apparently Wendell can't mark bonus miles as he once did or it would be marked as 63km.
I think this will turn out to be a great training run for several early season 50 milers that I'm committed to.
The sky was ominously cloudy, but it wasn't raining at the start as Wendell issued his announcements.
I took it easy at the start and chatted a bit with Chuck Wilson and his girlfriend Christine as we ran out Richards Road.
Then moving up the familiar climb of Chapparal and Crystal Springs to the Skyline Trail I ran with Taylor Valentino for a while. I hit the Kings Mountain aid station at mile 5 around 1 hour and, in the spirit of a training run, chatted with the heroic volunteers there for a bit.
From there, we continued on the rolling Skyline Trail to the Bear Gulch aid station. We continued on Skyline Trail, then down Alambique to the Bear Gulch trail, which was supposed to start a loop. However, I missed the turn for Redwood Trail which would take us back. Eventually I figured out that I had gone too far, and attempted to take some turns to get back. I spent about 90 minutes (conservatively I'm guessing 9 miles) on this escapade before finally finding the orange ribbons again.
At this point I fell in with Tom Kaisersatt who supplied me with some much needed snacks (potstickers yum!) Tom's good spirits buoyed mine, quite demoralized by the sidetrip. We stuck together for the next two aid stations.
But once we hit Chinquapin trail I had to have the fun of bombing down the hill. I ended up finishing around 7:23, something close to last. Apparently Wendell can't mark bonus miles as he once did or it would be marked as 63km.
I think this will turn out to be a great training run for several early season 50 milers that I'm committed to.
posted by Adam Blum at 9:26 AM
1 Comments:
Way to ramp up the mileage! Sounds like you had a good time despite the missed turn.
Sean
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