July 6 - July 12 Training Log

July 6- 10 mile run down Temescal Canyon Rd. Felt good, but was glad when it was over.
July 7- Rest day
July 8- 5 mile treadmill run. Felt good, getting easier.
July 9- 5 miles run in the heat of the afternoon, not too smart, felt sluggish from the heat.
July 10- Rest day
July 11- 7 mile run. First 3 miles, Sammy ran with me. We did the Horsethief Canyon Rd/ Hostetler loop. Finished the last 4 miles on the treadmill. Really enjoyed running with Sammy and he did awesome.

June 29 - July 5 Training Log

June 29- Very hilly but scenic 5.5 mile run with Beth at the Santa Rosa Plateau. Felt like a lot longer run, all the ups and downs really beat me up but the beautiful scenery is worth it.
June 30- 45 minute bike ride with about 35 of it climbing Indian Truck Trail. It's amazing how quickly you can get back down a hill that took 40 minutes to climb.
July 1- Fast paced 3 mile treadmill run. Blah!
July 2- 1 hour mountain bike ride with lots of hills. Next time, need to do it earlier. Very HOT!
July 3- 5 mile trail run. Hilly and hot but great views!
July 4- REST- Homemade icecream!
July 5- 3 mile treadmill run- very low energy- possibly due to all the junk food eaten on the holiday!

June 22-28 Training Log

June 22- good 5 mile run, felt a little worn out after, but it is getting easier!
June 23- 7 mile run with Maggie. Got tough towards the end, but felt good afterwards. --- Feeling a little sore the morning after!
June 24- 1.5 hour bike ride. I hope my butt gets use to the seat soon, almost unbearable. 3 mile easy paced run on the treadmill.
June 25- Strength training, 3 mile treadmill run.
June 26- Rest day
June 27- nice 8 mile run, now off to the pool!
June 28- Helped someone move. Now that's a workout!!

All in all a good training week. Not as much time on the bike as I would have liked but I did actually work a couple days this week.

June 15-21 Training Log

June 15- 4 mile run at the "Swamp" with the boys and Maggie
June 16- 2 mile easy run during Sammy's practice
June 17- 20 minute morning swim, 75 minute bike ride
June 18- 20 minute morning swim, 90 minute bike ride, 4 mile run during Sammy's practice.
June 19- 3 mile easy run with Candace and Maggie at the "swamp"
June 20 rest
June 21- short, easy 3 mile hike with the family on Ortega highway.

Good week of training. It helped that I did not have any work this week, but let's hope that trend does not continue. Felt good during most days, need to get use to riding the bike again. A little disappointing that I did not get my long run in, but breakfast in bed on Father's day was worth missing it. Thanks Kat and boys!

Wow! It has been a long time since I have posted here. I have since signed up to run the Long Beach marathon with my sister on October 11th. I am stoked that she agreed to run it. I have begun training and am finding it easier to get out there with this motivating me. I have a lot of work to do in the next 4 months but I am very excited to be running back into shape, especially with Beth!

Tenaja Falls

I actually got my 11 year old son Andrew to join me on a trail run today. We decided we would go up to Tenaja Falls. It is only about 3/4 of a mile from the parking lot up to the falls, so I thought this would be a nice first run for him. We had a very nice time. We chatted the whole way. I got to hear a lot of stories about how school is going. When we got up to the falls he was not ready to quit so we continued up about another half mile before the sky started to look really gray. We decided to turn around and head back to the truck. He only took one spill on the way down which is pretty good considering the amount of rocks on the trail and the fact that we had our dog Maggie with us who doesn't always know to stay out of the way. I had a wonderful time talking with him, it is not often that I get that much one on one time with any of the boys. It is amazing how much he is growing up. We will definitely need to do it again.

Treadmill Doldrums

I am finding it harder and harder to get motivated when I have to use the treadmill for my daily run. Even the short 3 milers are boring as hell on the treadmill. I am spoiled by the trails we have been running on lately. Unfortunately, my schedule dictates that sometimes the treadmill is the only way I can get in a run. This week for instance, between all 3 boys, we have 2 soccer practices, 7 baseball practices and 3 soccer games. Anyone have any ideas on how to spice up a treadmill run?

Adventures in Farming

In my last post I referenced an experience that I had on a previous adventure in the Cleveland National Forest. Here is the complete story of said experience. My family has somewhat of a tradition of spending the 4th with my parents at their home. You see, my mom makes homemade ice cream every 4th of July and this alone is reason enough to make the hour long drive over the mountain. For some reason that I can not remember, this year was different. We stayed home on the 4th as did my sister and her family. However, there was no way we were going to miss out on homemade ice cream that we get but one time per year so we convinced my mom to make it a few days later and the family would come and celebrate a few days late. Well the night before, my kids, as well as my sisters kids had stayed the night at my parents house. I think we had a concert to go to or something. Since my sister and I would both be driving over the mountain, we took advantage of the babysitting and decided it would be a perfect time to get in a short hike while we did not have the kids. We were training to climb Mt. Whitney later in the summer and needed all the miles we could get. We decided to meet at the San Juan Loop trail head which is directly across the highway from the Ortega candy store. We headed down the trail all the way to the bottom of the canyon where I had the bright idea of trying to walk back up the canyon but via the dry creek bed instead of the trail. My wife and sister were both game so up we headed. From the creek we were not able to see the trail, but figured we would easily see the turnoff that would take us back to our waiting car. Boy were we wrong. We walked for what seemed like a good distance but figured it just seemed further due to the many obstacles we had to avoid. Eventually we came to a small pool that still had water and saw a shiny new Honda pump with a black hose attached to it leading up the creek. This is odd we thought, being a little naive, our first thought was that the rangers must be pumping the old stagnate water out of the creek to control the mosquitoes. This was a national forest. Boy were we wrong again. After following the black hose for a good distance we suddenly came across two men. One approached from behind us and one was coming down out of the brush way above the creek. Neither of the men spoke English, but luckily for us, my Spanish is decent enough to communicate. The men asked what we were doing and if we had seen any of the "plantas". At this point, I figured out real quick what was going on and tried to play dumb. I told the men that we were lost and asked where the highway was. At this point neither my wife or my sister knew what was going on. All of our communication had been in Spanish. The men told us to follow them and they would take us to the road. They them escorted us up the creek about 300 yards, one of them in front of us and one of them behind us. The guy who was leading was actually quite friendly and showed us where the poison oak was and where they had come across rattlesnakes. The man behind us was not nearly as friendly and was actually a little scary looking. We finally got to the base of a hill and one of the men handed me his cell phone and told me to speak with his "jefe" or boss. I spoke with this man on the phone in English. He proceeded to tell me that we were trespassing on his land and not to come back. I thought this was funny because it is a national forest, but of course I played right along. He even offered to trade us some "product" in exchange for us keeping quiet about what we had seen. I told him that would not be necessary and he sent us up the hill. At the top of the steep hill was the highway. At this point I explained to my wife and sister what was happening. The spot that we came out at was about 2 miles east of where we had parked, but we were just glad to be away from the farmers and headed back to the car.
In doing a little research and my sister talking with the sheriff department, we found out that marijuana farming is quite prevalent in wild areas. Please learn from our mistakes and be very careful when coming across things that strike you as odd when hiking. We were lucky, things could have turned out much worse. By the way, the ice cream later that day was awesome!

Blue Jay to San Juan loop

My sister, my wife and a few other friends have decided to run a trail half marathon. For those who are not familiar with marathons, they are 26.2 miles long which makes the half marathon 13.1 miles. We have been trying to do some longer runs on the weekends in order to prepare for this adventure. Two Sundays ago, my sister and I decided to head up the Ortega highway and get in a training run. We decided to run from Blue jay to the San Juan Loop trail head. We thought this would be about 6 miles. We started off from Blue jay at 3:50 pm. This was our first mistake. The trail was nice, a little rocky but runnable. Most of the first few miles were slightly downhill so we were able to get into a nice rhythm. Well I can only speak for myself because my sister was quickly out in front of me and out of sight. That is until I came around a corner and there she was sitting in the middle of the trail. I could see the skid marks and churned up dirt so I knew that she had taken a nice digger. She had rolled her ankle and hit the deck but in the few minutes she had waiting for me to catch up, she was able to get it loosened up and was ready to keep going. So off we headed, this part of the trail was very nice and scenic with lots of trees and a nearby stream. We continued on for about another half hour until we hit the valley bottom and the trail took a turn upward. As I crossed a small ravine, it was my turn to taste the dirt. Apparently I did not pick my feet up enough because I kicked a rock and went down hard. Full on splat, water bottle went flying but there was only a little blood. Not enough to keep me from trying to catch my sister and tell her I had eaten it too! We continued up the other side of the canyon and from the trail we had a gorgeous view of the sun setting over the ocean and a great view of Catalina island. Not something you can get on a treadmill. As I rounded a corner about 15 minutes later, I found my sister waiting for me. By now it had gotten pretty dark and we thought we should stay together. Next thing we know we can see the highway and the candy store, but boy were they far away and way below us. Wow! is about all we could say, we had at least 2 more miles to go and it was very dark now. We decided we needed to stop running and walk due to the lack of vision and the fact that neither of us had been on this trail before. Well, it took us about another hour and 15 minutes to find our way back to the trail head and by then it was 7:30 pm. When I finally got back to the car, I called my wife who was extremely worried(mostly due to an experience in the same area last summer, but that is a story for another post). I told her we were safe and on our way home. We both enjoyed the run, but learned the trail was closer to 10 miles and that next time we need to start a Little earlier. All and all it was a fun adventure.

Beginings of a new blog

Well I am actually going to start a blog. We will see how faithfully I keep it up. Come back soon for the first real post. See you soon!