Today's 16.5 miles marks five days straight running--first time in a few months--the past 4 all on trails covering 47.7 miles and over 9500ft of climbing. It's a little early, but I am going to declare this my first official week of 2010 training. I'll probably do something easy tomorrow and then take Friday off before the weekend. I'm not sure what I'll do this weekend. If I'm feeling ambitious on Saturday morning the Epiphany Run will mark the first official unofficial ultra of the new year. I mainly just want to log a good week of miles to start off the new year.
Today's run was one of those rare sampling of new trails. While looking for someplace to run before doing some errands over in Palo Alto, I discovered the existence of the Bay-to-Ridge Trail. It's an interesting idea even if it does require a start and initial miles on pavement. Once the path reaches Arastrodero Preserve it's pretty much all trail to Skyline Ridge. As a future project, I think doing a "Bay to the Beach" run continuing on from Skyline Ridge through Long Ridge and Saratoga Gap open spaces to link up with the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail would be pretty cool. I was slightly less ambitious today starting in Arastrodero and continuing up through Foothills preserve to Los Trancos. I'd run in this last park before, but the rest of the trails were all new to me.
Arastrodero is mostly open grasslands with wide smooth paths. There are some nice looking single track, but all were closed due to muddy conditions. Foothills is a true gem, but is only open to the public via Arastrodero. It has some excellent winding trails leading gradually up to the ridge through deep tree cover. Very nice. I had a great time on this extremely runnable trails. I took it pretty easy, however, since I had done Mission Peak the day before. I will definitely have to sample these places out some more as there were many side trails leading off in all directions and it isn't too bad a drive since it is right off Hwy 280. Best of all, the experience of cruising along new trails having to force myself to turn around and head back was just what I needed to rejuvenate my passion for running trails in the new year.
Happy New Year everyone!
1 comment:
Steve
I run the trails around Portola valley & Woodside multiple times per week - and know "every possible" trail. I would be delighted to guide you to some of the trails in the area. :-)
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