Saturday's Trail Run

Yesterday, I went on the eight mile trail run scheduled through the San Francisco Marathon (SFM) training program in which I enrolled. The trail run started at Lake Anza in Tilden Park. The trail was a single track trail that meandered through thickly forested portions of the park, over (far too frequent) patches of deep, wet, and inescapable mud, it included several rocky uphill climbs, and a few peaceful grassy meadows. Unfortunately the poison oak is in full force (at some places it was several feet high), but I managed to avoid it. For the first time in the seven years I've lived in California, I saw not one, but dozens of banana slugs. They seemed to be attracted to the deep damp patches of mud. So, in addition to avoiding falling on my butt in huge puddles of mud that looked like brownie-batter, I also tried to avoid squishing the banana slugs (which were absolutely enormous)! All in all, the trail was hilly and muddy, but also beautiful.

While I ran the first few miles without stopping, a few miles into the run we hit a huge, never-ending, uphill climb and after running the first portion of it, I finally gave up and walked. As we continued on, I realized that I would re-characterize the morning's trail run into what was really a "trail run/hike" since I ended up walking (or hiking) a majority of the uphill climbs.

Somehow I managed to stay at the beginning of the pack with a group of about 6-8 people and one dog. I was at the back of the group, but we were far ahead of any other runners. The entire running group that morning was probably around 25 people. The run was absolutely exhausting. During the last few miles, my right hip flexor began to ache and my ankles and knees began to feel sore, but the pain was not so bad that I couldn't finish. When I did finish, my feet were entirely caked with mud. In fact, the trail's mud patches were so wet that my socks were also soaked in muddy liquid. When I removed my sneakers and socks, even my toes were covered in mud! Gross!! Here is a photo of my sneakers from after the run:




When I got home I was starving. In an effort to aid my muscle recovery, I slammed a protein shake and gobbled down a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Yum! While I wanted to lie like a corpse on the couch for the rest of the day, my husband and I had big plans for the remainder of the afternoon and evening, which included spending the next seven hours on our feet (took the dog to the dog park then went on a long overdue shopping trip), followed by dinner and drinks with some friends in San Francisco. Needless to say, I definitely over did it Saturday. Fortunately, today I was not as sore as I expected to be. My quads and calves were not sore at all (which was sort of amazing). I just have lingering soreness in my joints but that is it!