The G Running Diary

Into the Wild Blue Yonder: 10/20/02

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For a shoe-testing run, I suppose three hours is long. There was good variety too: some roads, some rolling trails, some steep hills. The route? I ran from my front door all the way up into the hills. I don't know why, but somehow I get more of a kick out of this than I do if I drive to a trail head and run from there. This means I'm running on pavement for a while, but I think it's good to mix it up. I still worry about my leg bones holding up.

Yesterday I bought Saucony Grid Hurricanes. These were on the list of recommended shoes for me from Dr. Hannaford. I was convinced that Saucony was the way to go, since there are wide in the toe box but still narrow in the mid-foot. Asics are narrow all the way through, and the Mizunos I had tried were wide all the way through. The fit of the Saucony shoe seemed fine, both with and without orthotics. This was important, because I am not yet using the orthotics regularly, so I need to be able to run without them. To fit them I needed the wide toe box plus a heel that was deep enough to accommodate them. So how did they do? Well, considering that my feet were probably a little bit beat up from running 50 miles last weekend, I think they were just fine.

But on to the run. Before I got out there I was thinking how great it would be to run 50 miles every weekend. Last week was so great, that just seemed like the perfect idea. As soon as I set out the door, those ideas faded away, and I was left with wondering if I could even stand it for two hours. I felt like a slug. Even walking was hard, and this was the flat part where I needed to start running to warm up. I persevered and stopped to stretch, and things improved. I reminded myself that this was supposed to be fun. The weekend run doesn't have to be hard training. If I wanted hard stuff, I'd be out there with Don and Jeff running the Humbolt Marathon. Although you can run races at a slower pace and make them training runs, there is still an urgency in finishing the event well. Off by myself like this, I could just stop and enjoy the view for as long as I wanted.

My route went straight up El Monte road, past Highway 280, past Foothill College onto Moody Road, and then left on Rhus Ridge to the trail head. The trail goes straight up for .9 of a mile and then intersects with other trails in Rancho San Antonio. From the top of Rhus Ridge, you can look out over the bay area, and I could see the Shoreline amphitheater and other prominent landmarks that showed me how far I had come just to get to this point. It looked far from up there. At the intersection I took the Black Mountain trail, which rolled along for a while. Actually, I ended up taking a detour off to the right, the Hidden Villa trail. I had run on this before, and figured it just did a little loop around to meet up again with Black Mountain further along. This would give me a loop instead of a pure out and back. At this point I was sure two hours for the run was long enough, and I was over one hour.

So these little trails took me somewhere outside of the park. The trail went down the other side of the mountain and then ran along next to a creek. Last time I ran on it I must have gone a different way. The trees curved over the trail, so it seemed almost enchanted, but it was also well worn. I figured I could always turn around and go back, but I wanted to find if the trail did eventually meet up with Black Mountain again. Sure enough, Ewing Hill trail eventually came to a hill right back up. From that point on, it was all downhill back home. Me and my out and backs. The homeward journey is always downhill. It felt good to run back into town and not stop until my front door.