The Double Dipsea

My toenail is about to fall off. I would take a picture and show you, however, I painted my toenails orange and don't feel like finding a camera.

Those of you who run trails and mountains know the hassle of the black toenail. This one, the left big toe, is due to The Double Dipsea.

The Double Dipsea is a 15 mile ordeal, set in Marin County, CA. This trail race starts at Stinson Beach,   famous for being part of the Red Triangle, a breeding ground the The Great White Shark. And a great boogie board beach here in NorCal.

The race takes you from sea level through a series of rolling hills, with the top elevation being Cardiac Hill, elevation 1360. Doesn't sound that hard, right? Wrong. The challenge of this race is that it is a roller coaster on Mt. Tamelpias. You run up 600 feet, then down 100 feet, then back up another 500, then down to sea level, then back up 760 feet, then down again, and repeat, for four hours. Black toe is guaranteed.

Along the trail route, you will encounter rattle snakes, slick wooden stairs, dodgy tourists unaware that this is a race route, small cliff faces, heat, and more stairs. You will also have amazing vistas of the Pacific Ocean, Meir Woods, plum trees, and tons of single track, technical goodness.

I am ready to hit the trail!

Mile 2 and mile 14, since the Double Dipsea is an out and back route.

SNAKES!!!

Here in Northern California, we have snakes. As a trail runner, you will definately encounter snakes. This last weekend, I saw 4 snakes, and almost stepped on the last one. On a previous run, I had to remove from the trail a 4 foot snake that was drunk on sunshine (with a large stick). (Why did I manually remove the snake? Well, it was laying across the path and refused to move, even when poked with a stick. Mountain bikes would have wiped out and squished it if someone didn't remove it. Or another runner would have stepped on it. It was very drunk on sunshine, and very large. This was not a single track, but a fire trail, and the snake spanned the whole thing.) (Snakes love to look like sticks and get drunk on sunshine on our running trails.) (Then we step on them.)

Common California snakes include the following:

Gophersnake - I see these the most. Little cuties that slither away. Brown and spotty.
Coachwhip - I don't think I have seen these, yet.
Sharp-tailed snake - These are apparently common in NorCal, but in junk and wood piles. Not the common trail snake. Never seen one.
King snake - I have seen these out in Point Reyes trails. And porbably misidentified them on other trails.
Racer snake - Statistically, some of the snakes I call gartersnakes were probably racer snakes.
Striped Racer/whipsnake - this is the snake I almost stepped on. I screamed like a baby and studder jumped over it, since I saw that I would step on it while in mid-air.
Ring necked snakes - I have never seen one of these
Western Rattlesnakes - Yes, these poisonous guys are everywhere. I have seen one on Matt Davis. My best friend's dog got bitten by one on the nose. My old boss used to kill them hiding under his car at home in the hills. (Use a shovel). There are lots of them in NorCal. They like to hide under cars, picnic tables, rocks, and like to sun themselves in the middle of the day on trails. Do not step on them.
Gartersnakes - I have seen tons of these little guys. Cute and snakey. They are usually brown or reddish with a yellow stripe on the side. Harmless. Unless you are on a mountian bike. Then think of them as crunchy slugs.

Here is a snake on the trail I am running tomorrow:

http://blog.sfgate.com/stienstra/2013/06/18/hero-dog-saves-marin-hiker-from-rattlesnake/

Bay to Breakers May 19, 2013

This year's Bay to Breakers is now complete and was one of the best I have experienced. Not so much because of the SFO race organization (there have been better years when there still was a Footstock afterparty at the polo fields), but because my running club, the RATS - Run Around Town Sundays, participated in full!

Me and my running partner Richard founded the club in January of this year. We spend time and care putting the club together, and with our literal sweat and tears, we are now 80+ members strong, with a core group of 25 that show up regularly. Our club is unique in that we focus on both beginners and advanced runners, with the emphasis on fun, not speed. With fun being the biggest priority, we can accomodate all ages, abilities, and those with injuries. I, myself, had major hip surgery and will never run faster than 11 minute miles, and often will run slower. When founding the club, one of our stated goals was to get a group to run the B2B - Success!!!

If you are not familiar with B2B, it is a San Francisco tradition, 102 years old, a 12K foot race run from the Bay (under the Bay bridge) to the Breakers (Ocean Beach). There are real runners (winners from Ethiopia this year) who execute this race in 35 minutes, there are joggers (like myself) who run this in 1:30:00, and there are walkers in crazy costumes (taking up to 4.5 hours).

As you can see, our club was 17 runners strong (not all are in the photos), in our adorable club tee shirt, some with ears and tails and tutus. After the race we all had beers at the Beach Chalet. Six of us then "Salmoned" the race route back to the beginning, making this a 15 mile run. With the beer break, I would call this a Ragnar Race training day, two back-to-back 7.5 mile runs in the same day! As the last photo demonstrates, we look pretty fresh after 15 miles!

New trail shoes

So I needed new trail shoes for the summer season. I wanted to get fancy, try something high tech. I ordered the new Pearl Izumi EM Trail N1 on Zappos, in size 10. When they arrived it was obvious they were way too long, to big. So I returned/exchanged them for a half size smaller, 9.5. I test drove those puppies on a 12 mile trail run on Grizzly Peak. Bad news. They suck.

The shoes are too heavy and too narrow. The tread is fine, but the soles are way thick. I cannot feel the trail. They Are being promoted as minimal, but IMHO these are not minimal. I never blister on this trail, and my feet were very blistered with these shoes.

I returned/exchanged them for another pair of New Balance MT110. No blisters! Wide enough for my Hobbit sized feet!


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Bay To Breakers and RATS

My running club, Run Around Town Sundays (RATS) will be running this May 19th Bay To Breakers sporting our new club tee shirts!




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Grizzly Peak Half Marathon

This Sunday April 7, 2013, I will be running the Grizzly Peak Half Marathon.

The Grizzly Peak race is composed of five different races to choose from: 10K, Half Marathon, 30K, Full Marathon and a 50K. The race course for all five races overlap each other in loops around Tilden Park, the East Bay park above the Berkeley Hills. As demonstrated in the picture, there are panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay. This is a beautiful route, and one of my regular training run areas.

The highest elevation, the peak itself is only 1,400 feet. Of coarse, with this race, there will be rolling hills, many, many rolling hills. The Half Marathon will have 3,850 in elevation gain, 63% single track, 35% dirt road, 2% asphalt - a proper trail run/race.

The race offers aid stations every 6 miles, and a race day tee shirt! The race will probably sell out!

My brother and sister-in-law will be joining me in this race. After the race we are having rabbit stew! Noms!

Ragnar Trail Relay - Tahoe July 2013

I love races. I am not competitive, never have been. But I enjoy group activities, and public races are not necessarily about who comes in first (you know it's the Kenyan guy who flew in two days ago.) This year I plan on running at least four races, including the Grizzly Peak Half Marathon in April, the Bay to Breakers in May, the Lake Tahoe Trifecta (3 half marathons in a weekend) in September, the CIM - the California International marathon (the Sacramento marathon), and to top it all off, I joined a Ragnar team!

Like many runners on the roads and trails, I had been noticing these orange butterfly symbols on tee shirts, and knew it was a running series. With a Google search, it appeared Ragnar was very trendy and had a cult like following. I had seen one run live in Marin a few years back, on my way to running Mt. Tam alone. But I had never looked into joining a team.... until now.

Ragnar is now doing a trail running series, and they have chosen South Lake Tahoe as one of their locations. Run up and down ski runs in the summer? Yes, please! 

As the new Adult Sports Director for the City of Albany, I have been learning how to put together an athletic team from scratch. It is definitely an art. Part of it is "If you build it they will come," but it's much more complicated than that. A sports team is also about chemistry - do these athletes work well together, about position - you can't have 10 pitchers and no outfielders, and about the purpose of the team - do they want to have fun or do they want to win?

I thought about putting together my own team. But since this is my first Ragnar, it made more sense to join an existing team, a team that had experience under its belt. But the team had to match my abilities and goals, which is to say, non-competitive and into a good time above all things. And Team Uter Zorker answered my call! They run for chocolate! Named after the fat German kid from the Simpsons, this Vegas based running club appears to be a perfect match for me. So this July you will see me running at Sierra-at-Tahoe for two days, with a bag of M&Ms in my Nathan's backpack.