Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

Today was a pretty active day for a change. I started by running up the Whiting Woods fireroad across the valley from the house I grew up in. it climbs 1700 feet in 2.8 miles, which is more climbing than I've done on a long time.

In the afternoon I rode the El Prieto trail with my brother. It's the final trail on the Angeles Crest 100. It's also one of the best quick mountain bike rides I know of.

After that I went for a run with Catherine at the high school track, and then I went home to eat Panda Express and cookies and drink diet Dr. Pepper. Good day.

This morning I headed out to climb Mount Lukens, which is right behind my house and which I've never been up before. It also happens to be the highest point within the Los Angles city limits. My plan was to run up the fireroad from Haines Canyon, but my brother told me the better route was to take the trail from Deukmejian Park, which would intercept the fireroad somewhere past the halfway point. What he didn't specify was that "the trail" was actually one of many within the park. 

After two false starts, I wound up on the right trail, but only after spending more than 30 minutes on two miles of the wrong trails and a bit of bushwhacking to get were I needed to be. The right trail turned out to be a good one, but I was forced to turn around shortly after reaching the fireroad because of time constraints. It was too bad, because the summit was so close, and I would have made it easily within the same time if I had started out on the right trail. I'll get it next time. Maybe before we go home.

After my trail run, I joined Catherine and Elliott for a lap around the Rose Bowl. Unfortunately, I hadn't eaten enough after my earlier run, so I bonked and had to bail out after only two miles. Still, I've already run more miles in the last two days than I have in most weeks during the last few months.

You never want to let mountains have the last word, because once you do they'll start to think they're in control. So after my failed attempt at Mt. Lukens yesterday, I went back this morning for another attempt. Things went much faster since I knew where I was going. In fact, I was off the trail and on the fire road (about 2.3 miles out) in the time it took me to find the trail yesterday. 

When I wrote yesterday, I said I was almost to the top when I turned around. It turns out that looks can be deceiving, and I was only about halfway there. Once on the fire road, the route meanders around and takes its sweet freaking time to actually get to the summit. By the time I made it, I didn't have any time to hang around, so I flipped right around and headed back down the way I came. Somewhere along the way I missed a turn and cut a switchback, shaving about a tenth of a mile off the route.

In total, 10.1 miles and 2900 feet. Up in 60:54 and down in 39:33, with 53 seconds to take care of (ahem) business at the summit.

At the rate I'm going, I may actually have one 50 mile week in 2011.

I've had a pretty good running week so far, and I'm hoping to finish 2011 with my first 50-mile week of the year (sad, isn't it?). I made more progress toward that today with a solid run up Mount Wilson from Chantry Flats, just outside of Arcadia. 

The first portion of the route, the upper Winter Creek trail, was pretty mellow, both in terms of climbing and terrain. After about 2.5 miles it joins another trail, which climbs sharply up a wooded ravine for another 2 miles and change. There, the route joins the Mt. Wilson Toll road to the summit. The elevation gain is 3900 feet over 6.6 miles. On the way down I followed a cutoff trail, shaving a couple of tenths of a mile from the return trip.  

The coolest thing about the run? Giant blue squirrels.

One more day in LA, one more day running on dirt. I repeated Monday's route, but this time I wore my Garmin (and I've edited Monday's entry accordingly). My legs are feeling pretty heavy by this point, so it was pretty slow going.

Whiting Woods is a nice little climb. It's a pretty well-maintained fire road, so it's not very exciting, but it provides a nice, steady grade and a beautiful (though often smoggy) view from the top. 

Anyway, that's pretty much the end of the week (tomorrow will probably be a short and easy run--just enough to round out my mileage), and it's been a good one. So far I'm at 47.2 miles and 12,400 feet of vertical. I think the last time I ran a week like this was in late July or early August. It's nice to get my fill before the next semester starts. 

My plan was to run this morning in Saint George. I had even thought of going for a long trail run. But despite our planning for bad traffic between LA and Vegas yesterday, things turned out to be way worse than we expected. It took us 6 hours to get from Pasadena to Baker, and another 3.5 or so to make it to Vegas. We eventually arrived in Saint George 11,5 hours after we left--plenty of time to have driven all the way to American Fork on a normal day. We didn't make it to bed until sometime after 3:00, so I abandoned any plans for a morning run.

I eventually got out tonight for a quick three mile loop, and with that I complete my first 50 mile week of the year. It was kind of a drag to get all bundled up for local running after spending the last couple of weeks enjoying 85 degree weather in LA.