Diablo and San Fran

Training days around the Bay Area... starting with a hike up Mount Diablo.  John hadn't been to the top, it seems like time to get there.

We started the trek from Rock City (which strangely didn't have any "See Rock City" signs), and immediately found an unusual water obstacle on the Summit Trail:

Not sure why the hydrant was running wide open, but we detoured through the brush.  Which resulted in my first poison oak spot of the season - on my back, from some detritus that fell down my neck while we were bushwhacking.  And I was being so careful not to touch the poison oak ground cover.  Ah well, that's pretty minor compared to prior PO incidents!

Apparently I don't feed the man enough:

Geology rockin' it up - there are some excellent signboards explaining how this area was an ancient ocean, then it got pushed up and tilted and folded:

It even promised us some lava rocks, not from recent Sierra-type volcanos, but from much longer ago as magma rocks from that ocean floor.  Something new in our volcano-related learning.

Carrying some pack weight as training for summer mountains:

The tower at the top of Diablo is a great lookout spot.  We hung out and admired the views for a while.  But the interesting piece was actually inside the building, a spot I hadn't found before.  It turns out that THIS is the actual summit of Mount Diablo, contained by the building walls:

So now I've been to the "real" top of the mountain too:

Ah ha!  There's our lava rock, called Greenstone:

A beautiful day for a hike amid the springtime flowers:

Back at Rock City we stashed the big packs and went for a little scramble around the sandstone formations (my favorite type of formation):

I believe this is the top of Sentinel Rock, amid fun little trails and rock shapes and views:

Rock scenery:

Carved steps:

Optimistic flora:

On a different day I took an older Terraloco race map into San Francisco for another adventure in urban nav.  I do enjoy finding different parks and parts of the city I haven't seen before.

A bit of public art along the way:

Stairs up to Coit Tower:

More springtime flowers:

Yep, it's a majestic landmark:

Maybe someday we'll take a cruise out of this port:

Alcatraz and Angel Island:

The sea lions are back!  The dock was empty last time I came through, but I could hear them from a distance and knew I needed to make a little detour:

Lots of action (in between the sleeping), juggling for position, jumping in and out of the water, climbing over each other, making lots of noise (how does anyone sleep through that?):

Always entertaining, I could sit and watch all day:

A few seconds of the action in video form:

Tall ships at Hyde Street Pier:

Solar panels (and a view of GG Bridge) at Fort Mason:

I hadn't been through Fort Mason before, that was a fun little jaunt to check out the cannon:

Stairs is the name of the game:

Which results in great views - I was particularly curious about the solar array on the curved roof near the middle of this photo:

Odds are they don't all belong to him... right?

The Presidio, cool!  It was the main attraction of this particular Terraloco map and I was excited to see more of it.

Bonus - a piece of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, excellent!

I've looked at the BART (the trail, not the transit) as a potential circumnavigation of the Bay, but ran into a couple questions like public access restrictions and overnight closing hours.  Maybe someday I'll get motivated enough to figure out how to make it doable.  In the meantime, I can just enjoy anytime I see the trail markers:

Lovely National Cemetery with a view of the bridge:

Looking over at Crissy Field, apparently hosting a Girl Scout gathering:

Well, if I'm going to keep taking pictures of the bridge (and I am), I might as well try to change them up a little:

Scenery to the south:

Climbing around the various batteries looking for answers to the race questions in the graffiti:

It was neat getting a chance to check these out without being "on the clock" as I was when I ran through here during a trail race a couple years ago:

Heading down to the beach for a view of the bridge again:

A bit of wave action:

One more interesting battery:

And one more Bay Area Ridge Trail marker - thanks BART!

Last checkpoint and my favorite little hill in San Francisco, Corona Heights:

Sutro Tower was in the clouds all day:

Thank you for the fun day!

Another quick race recap to finish off a blog post: Last weekend I ran the Miwok 100K for the first time.  It's part of the continuing series called "how I'm exploring races around the country as part of trying to get into Western States".  It took place north of Golden Gate Bridge, in a beautiful area that I've raced and run in before.  It was helpful knowing many of the trails and what I was getting into, namely a whole ton of ups and downs.

And some gorgeous coastal scenery.  I always enjoy the trails here.  We had perfect weather, not too many crowds on the trails, and wonderful volunteers helping us out.

The first half went really well, even with the stops-and-starts waiting in line to climb the first long hill (lots of runners, narrow singletrack, and there's no way I'm jumping into the poison oak just to pass someone).  Once we topped out at Cardiac Hill, the downhill to Muir Beach went smoothly, and the trail turned into doubletrack for many miles.  My legs were happy climbing and I enjoyed chatting with folks occasionally.  One guy told me that my Waffle House arm warmers were great but they made him hungry for chicken and waffles  :)

The second half of the course kicked my butt.  The biggest climb back to Cardiac and beyond was slow but expected.  After that, I discovered trails that were much more "rolling" than I had thought.  And I had even been on some of these before, during the Marin High 5 FKT run.  It turns out that being under the gun with race cutoffs makes you see the little hills a lot differently compared to just needing to complete an FKT for it to count.

So I watched the clock, tried to stay patient within a running "train" for a couple miles, finally got out of that train to run my own pace, and then tried to recover from my astonishment upon realizing just how much of this trail we'd need to repeat on the way back before the last trail down to the finish at Stinson Beach.  Yep, a bit of misunderestimation going on here.

Finally I got to the turnaround at Randall aid station, happily still with plenty of time to cover the last 13 miles even though I was slowing down.  The final aid station had little slices of pizza, happy day :)  plus I had a couple fun chats with runners and volunteers there.  Let's go finish this thing up.

The rolling hills weren't nearly as bad now that I had seen them once before (plus listening to podcasts usually helps).  However, the final 2 miles were a bit on the cruel side - steep downhill trail with a bunch of tall steps to coax my tired legs over, which wouldn't have been nearly a big deal except the trail has a severe poison oak encroachment.  Really?  Dancing around the vines after 60 miles of running?  OK, fine.  But I'm not going to be in a hurry about it - and luckily I didn't have to.

I got to the end within the cutoff time (15:13 vs. 15:30), it was fun, glad to be done!  Now I can enter the WS lottery for the 6th time and maybe someday I'll get to run that race too.

Upstate NY and Boston

One race that keeps calling to me (besides Big Dog) is the Don't Run Boston 50-miler the weekend before the Boston Marathon.  It's a trail run with navigational elements, a fat-ass event with support, and an adventure in a wonderful park south of Boston.  Whenever I'm anywhere near New England in the spring, I try to figure out how to get there.

As a side benefit, Mom and I got to spend more time together, very enjoyable.  Then it was time to pick up my rental car from Burlington and head south.  And since "straightforward" is a word that rarely applies to me, I took a detour to Albany to visit friends along the way.

Which is how I ended up at Crown Point, one way to cross from Vermont into New York.  There have been a couple iterations of bridges at this spot, and for a while it was actually a ferry crossing while this newest bridge was being built.  Admiring the structure on a bluebird day:

The memorial lighthouse across the way:

What's this, another trail?  I had not heard of the North Country Scenic Trail before, but apparently it ends right here:

Another view of the pretty bridge:

Walking around the old fort, a nice bit of leg-stretching in the middle of the drive:

Trail sign - these tend to catch my eye nowadays:

Continuing south, I stopped at the town of Ticonderoga.  I'm pretty sure we went on at least one field trip to the fort here when we were young.  La Chute River through town connects Lake George to Lake Champlain (file under: I learned something new today).  I very much enjoyed walking along the river and checking out the shapes of the water:

Much of this is probably manmade, props to whoever came up with these designs:

I've never seen a diagonal waterfall before:

A covered bridge for good measure:

Now the real reason I stopped in Ticonderoga...

The Star Trek Original Series set tour - only open on weekends (bummer) but at least I could say hi to the Gorn (and I'm only half-nerd, because I don't remember anything about the white furry guy):

Mock shuttle Galileo out front:

Live long and prosper - but don't park overnight:

Dinner with my friends/former coworkers was great fun and full of reminiscing and laughing.  Thank you guys!

Another little side trip the next morning, to Kinderhook to continue the "I don't know why I started this, but apparently I'm going to keep visiting dead presidents" quest.

I do appreciate the little sign at the cemetery:

A nice commemoration for Martin van Buren:

His large house on the other side of town:

The drive to Boston was uneventful and I had time to stop at another cemetery in Quincy:

The previous location of the graves of #2 and #6:

A lovely town square with John Hancock presiding:

And of course an excellent statue of John Adams:

The church gives a nice tour that focuses on the presidents and their history in the area, along with a visit to the crypt in the basement.  I also learned that "visiting presidential gravesites" is a thing, so at least it's not just me.

The US flag at the time of John Adams' presidency:

A few more stars by the time JQA was in office:

Every year there is a wreath-laying ceremony; David McCullough was there to participate a couple years ago:

And now - to Boston!  Even though I wasn't running in the marathon, I greatly enjoyed seeing the city the weekend before the race.

On my way to the race expo, I emerged from the T to see the 5K that just happened to be going on - racers crossing the finish line, cool!

A bit of 2013 emotion about this place:

Site of a future memorial:

Didn't expect to see a Tesla here, nice!

I enjoyed a couple of the runner seminars at the expo - a morning meditation and a panel talking about mental strategies for racing:

Heading back down the street, there was another race going on.  I suspect from the Jumbotron that it was a mile race, probably not a beer mile:

More wandering around the city, admiring the bloomings:

Another Chinatown:

Large public art:

A Boston Tea Party ship:

At the Children's Museum:

I met up with my friends Jeff and Nicole for lunch and got to meet their adorable son Jake - I believe his bib says "Home brewed", too funny:

Now for the "race report" portion of this post.  Short and sweet this time!  I just love running in Blue Hills Park, following a map around (and around) through the maze of trails, up and down, over rocks on the Skyline Trail, and with plenty of actual running on non-Skyline trails.  This time I ran most of the race with Steve, who had just gotten into the race the week before and didn't really know what he was getting into.  He was game to follow me around and we chatted and worked on finding the turns in the trail together.  Toward the end we teamed up with Evren for a few miles (and one major mishap while I was going on and on about the Barkley).  It was a different experience running with other people on this course and I enjoyed the company.

The highlight was climbing up Rattlesnake Hill and getting a group photo (Boston is sort of in the background, easier to see in person than in a picture):

 

Photo credit - Evren Gunduz

Fun times!

Well, that's it for my Big Trip!  Back to California to spend a couple months finishing things up before we get back on the road again...