Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Bayfront Park - new training ground

Took a little over an hour after work to bike over to the Bayfront Park for a quick workout.  I can already see how it's going to become my default training ground/terrain park.  Created over a landfill and Cargill salt mines, it's not nature's most wonderous wonder.  But it's got gorgeous views of the bay, beautiful sunsets and a plethora of birds of all shapes in sizes, ducks, geese, and even herons.  Most importantly, it's only a 12 minute bike ride away.

A hundred roads, paths and trails spiderweb this fairly small space (about 2 mile perimeter), so I can have a different run every time if I wanted to.  Just go randomly in any direction.  The fun part is that it's got a few good hills, even if small.  So I can really have fun here sprinting up and down the mounds.  There is also one little hill with two paths going down it which are steep and technical.  So even though the hill's only like 25 feet, those would give me some technical downhill/balance practice close to home.  I can already envision sprinting up and down like 10 times in a row.

Monday, January 2, 2012

I'm back!!!

After practically taking a month off due to pulling something in my back at the Death Valley Marathon, I'm finally back on the trails!  So excited to be running in the mountains again.

Did Black Mountain today - 10 miles, 2500 up/down - in 1:50, which was either my best time or second best.  Was super stoked to be up on the mountains again.  Physically, didn't feel particularly great during most of the run... but I suppose the time speaks for itself.  Made it down in 39 minutes and my back held up despite pushing it hard.

Ice ice ice!