Oh yea,
Once again I have been neglecting my blog. I am happy to say that is mostly due to the fact that I have been spending more time running than I had been over the last month.
Good news and bad news.
Good news is that since my wife has a kick ass job and I am one of the few Americans that have health insurance. It had been a few years since I was covered. So, I went to the doctor to get checked out for the hell of it and I am in pretty darn good shape. The only hitch is the beginning of arthitus in my left knee. I have been suffering knee pain for the last few years and I thought it was just my body rebelling against the higher mileage I wanted to run (and basically it is). Looks like I have a great doc. I told him that I had no intentions of stopping running because of some stupid knee pain and he said it wouldn't be a problem as long as I stayed off the road. SWEEEEEEEEET......... I hate running on the road.
We have been hiking up Baden Powell out of Wrightwood. It is so nice to get out of the smog and into some elevation. It is a nice hike and a fun run down. I guess people are training for the AC100 right now. I wish I had the poop to go for it. Although, last Monday I threw caution to the wind and got a day permit for San Gorgonio Mountain.
San Gorgonio
I woke up Monday morning with and itch I had to scratch. That itch was along run, an adventure. So, as my wife got ready for work I half-assed my running kit together and made ready for an all day run. I said good bye to my wife and rolled down the road to the unknown. I got to the ranger station at around 8:15 got my permit to be on the mountain and the permit to park my truck. As the ladies were telling me of all the trails I could run I did not pay attention to the trail they put on my permit. OH Well. They gave me some fact sheets and news letters and I was off...... Only a half hour up the mountain to the parking area and I would be off. After twentyfive minutes I thought something was amiss Hmmmmmmm. So I pulled over...going through all of the papers the nice ladies gave me I could not find my parking permit. Down the mountain I go back to the ranger station. lo and behold it had fallen out of the F*cking pile of papers the nice ladies at the ranger station gave me. BACK UP THE MOUNTAIN I go. Good thing gas is so cheap right now or I would have been pissed. Did I mention I drive a fullsize pick up.
I was in great spirits to be up in the mountains to foolishly head out into the unkown all by myself. Man do I love being stupid. Pull on my trail shoes , strap on my camelbak, (even used sunscreen on my nose and ears) and I'm off. I would love to say that I was in a nice steady run from the truck to the summit,but a liar I'm not. A knuklehead maybe, but not a liar. Anyhow I'm off at a mix of steady jogging and power walking. I stopped a few time to snap some photo's and eat a little along the way. Since I lost over an hour driving back to get my parking permit I was on a tight time schedule. I would have to reach the summit in three hours or turn around and go back to the truck. It was pretty much a great assent. I kept an eye on my watch the whole time. As It got close to the three our cut off I started to get discouraged that I was not going to make the summit. I decided to switch over to my clock instead of the stopwatch I had been using and it was only 12:45 that meant I still had 15 minutes to reach the summit. Whoopee..... I went for it. I came around the bend and I probably had 500 yards the summit. I was able to break into a comfortable run. I hit the summit in 3:09. I was happy with that. Met some folks up there took turns taking photos for each other, had a snack, back down I go........
The run down was fairly uneventful until.........I got to a break in the trail and lost the damn thing. I'm not one to lose trails easy, I'm pretty good at finding my way. But, was somewhere new and walking in circles. Not fun....Went back up to where I lost the trail and found it again. Whew.....I was cruising along fairly well, I had to slow down at times because the trail was too rocky to run. I was paying attention to the fact that I was alone. I was hydrating along the way not wanting to cramp up. Guess who did not bring enough water..... Doh' I ran into a pack of scouts heading out on a backpacking trip. When one of the scouts asked me"how far did you get?" I proudly replied "to the top". Now after that I felt it would have been awkward to ask for some water. " Dumbass can make it to the top but doesn't bring enough water" I felt I had to suck it up and make it back to the truck. It was a long trip not having anymore water,live and learn. I made the return trip to the truck in 2:12. Not a minute to soon cuz I was wrecked. Luckily I keep a rather large first aid kit in the truck stocked with water and a lovely can of peaches. Who cares that they were piss warm. Those peaches were damn good.....
All in all I made it to my wifes work with plenty of time to spare. I came home to find that it was a 23mile round trip from 6600' to 11500'. Not bad for a day off
