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Tour of California Time Trail/Running Tour of LA

Today was one of those ambitious days that work out perfectly. My plan called for around 15 miles of running. No problem – all of a sudden, that seems sorta easy. Also, today the Time Trial stage of the Amgen Tour of California was going on downtown. And a few elite pro triathletes (Chris Lieto, Chrissie Wellington and Chris McCormack) would be pre-riding the course. I was psyched to check it out. And to make things better a bunch of triathlete and cycling friends were headed down to watch as well. Downtown is about eight miles from home and eight miles times two is 16 miles, so… I figured I could just combine the two by running down there, watching some of the race, hanging out with friends and running back home.

But the first thing I did this morning though was take the boys for a walk. Loren and Charlie’s dog Birdie is staying with us this weekend. Walking the three of them can be a bit of a challenge, but they’re good together (mostly!).

Then at around 10, I headed downtown to watch the Time Trial. I ran down to 3rd Street then right on Western to 8th Street to Vermont, to Olympic all the way to LA Live. I met up with a whole bunch of friends: Cat, Jeff, Mike, Darren, Arkady, Brooklin, Mel, Warren, Hyde, Chris and some other new friends. There were tons of people hanging out there cheering on the cyclists.

I got there in time to see Chrissie come flying by:

And then Macca:

We saw Dave Zabriskie cruising around the finish line area on a sweet ride a few hours before he was scheduled to get on the course:

Around the time the pro cyclists started on the course, I ran about a mile up to 4th and Olive, where there was a short but steep climb, to meet Anton and Arnie and watched some of the cyclists tackle the climb:

and then come flying down the descent:

I’m very curious to know how fast they were flying down the hill, but it had to be in the high 30’s at least.

Then it was time for me to run back home. For the way home, I got onto Wilshire and ran all the way west on Wilshire to La Brea, where I turned north and then west on Beverly to home. It was fun to run back through the city. Admittedly, there’s not a ton to see between here and downtown, but there was a lot of city life going on: soccer matches in parks, street vendors cooking lunch and selling junk and families out for walks. It felt good to run all over the City that I mostly only drive through. During my runs I was thinking about the fact that I can get a lot of places in LA on my feet. From home, I can get Downtown, to Brentwood, to Culver City, to Griffith Park and lots of other places with less than an eight mile run. It’s not that common that I can run back and forth to events, but I do know that I can. The running went well. I was a little worried that I’d suffer on the way home after a 3+ hour break (which I spent entirely on my feet). But I felt pretty good for most of the run home, until the last mile or so, which was a bit of a slog.

A few blocks from home, I almost fell over when I saw this:

Some Twitter/Facebook friends and I had been talking about the CoolHaus dessert truck for the last few weeks. You pick the type of cookie and the flavor of ice cream and they make a custom made ice cream sandwich for you. I was a little too far from home to stop my run and have a treat, but after I ran past, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I ran home, jumped in the car and headed right back there for a DELICIOUS oatmeal raisin cookie and cinnamon ice cream sandwich!

I also tried a sample of the Brown Butter and Candied Bacon Ice Cream. It was awesome. I would definitely get that next time. And there will be a “next time”!