I just noticed I am at exactly 1000 miles for the year right now. Cool.
PM- BTW (big trail workout)- started .8 miles into the Logan River trail, ran to Guinavah Malibu, then did a hard hill climb up to the Wind Caves- 1200 ft climb in 1.75 miles. Then ran down 1.4 miles, back up 1 hard mile with 700 ft climb, then all the way down and back to the car. 14.5 miles in 2:07:47 (yup, a whopping 8:48 pace). About 3000 ft climb on the whole run, and my legs were pretty tired by the end. We'll count the 2.5 miles as MP, even though it was about 11:00 pace.
Reason #492 that I love trail running: About 1/4 mile up the wind caves trail, a spring had burst from the ground and washed out the trail on the side of a steep hill/ravine. The stream is big enough that you can't jump across and has no dry rocks, and it caused the hillside above it to sluff off such that it is very steep (maybe 60-70 deg angle) and curved (like the bobsled turn from he%@), bare, loose dirt with no plants other than one overhanging tree branch. It took me about a minute on my way up to carefully climb up, across, and back down and was rather difficult with lots of slipping. On my way back down, I came tearing down the mountain with a head of steam to find a big group of college students trying to cross. The guys were all linking arms while the girls were shrieking and slowly climbing over the guys, trying not to fall or get wet. Well, without losing my momentum, I simply ran straight up the side of the loose dirt, angled around, turned straight down the mountain (sliding and almost falling, but just barely, barely hanging on), ducked under one very low branch, and flew on down the trail. The whole thing took me maybe 3-4 seconds and (in hindsight) was rather dangerous- if I had slipped, I would have fallen about 8 feet down and landed right on them. As I kept going without looking back, I heard some unprintable mutterings from the group that essentially amounted to, "That guys is *bleeping* nuts. Completely insane. Suicidal." It was great! I'm sure they now think all trail runners are crazy. Which we may be... | 