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A Day in the Mountains

On Saturday, for the first time since racing AC 100 in July 2010, I spent a day running in the Angeles National Forest.  And it was an awesome day.  Colin and Sally are both running their first AC 100 this summer and they wanted to get a long training run on the course.  Of course, I was more than happy to join them!

We decided that we were going to start at Wrightwood and run the first 26 miles of the course, including the climb up and over Mt. Baden-Powell, to finish at Islip Saddle.

Starting at the Wrightwood Community Building brought back some pretty good memories from my race.

I had forgotten just how tough that first section of the course is.  The race starts with a 2,000 foot climb from Wrightwood, up the Acorn Trail to the PCT.  It was a beautiful morning and we were having a blast and took some fun action shots.

At about mile 14, you get to Vincent Gap and the base of the Mt. Baden-Powell climb.  That climb is definitely the highlight of the first part of the course.  It’s 3.8 miles with 41 switchbacks and about 2,800 feet of elevation gain.  It was a warm, sunny day, but there’s still some snow on the mountain.  We hiked relatively hard, but took some decent breaks along the way.

This was one of the sections that was totally covered in snow.  Instead of continuing on the switchbacks, we made our own way here.

It took us nearly two hours do the climb, but the views from the top were a great reward!

There are a lot more downed trees blocking the trail than I remember from 2010.

After a quick stop at Little Jimmy Spring to fill up our water bottles with some of the most delicious water anywhere (AC runners – do not skip this during training or the race!), nearly seven hours after we started, we made it to Islip Saddle.

It was a ton of fun to spend a long day on my feet.  Lukas and I have been doing a long run in the Santa Monica Mountains once per weekend each of the last 4 or 5 weeks.  Last weekend, we did 20 miles on the Backbone Trail from Old Topanga to Malibu Creek.  I’m going to continue working on increasing mileage, working towards some potential races this summer.

One lesson I’ve been re-learning is how to fuel for the long run.  It’s so much different to fuel for a marathon (even a long marathon run) than for a long trail run.  For my training runs before LA, I was fine with one gel per hour.  During last week’s 20 miler and yesterday’s 26, 100 calories per hour wasn’t even close to enough.  I think I need to re-train my brain to take in 200-250 calories per hour.  That sounds like so much (and it really is), but otherwise, I’ll bonk in the fourth and fifth hour of a run.

Next weekend, I think Lukas and I will get back out onto the Backbone for a different section of the trail.

This is FUN!