Sore, but Determined

I woke up in the wee hours of this morning quite sore. I finished the Mud Run yesterday and I have found muscles I never knew I had. Still, I didn't want to miss today's hike to Point Reyes National Seashore, so I made my preparations last night and took an Alleve so I wouldn't feel too bad. I haven't been to Point Reyes in about four years and I've never been hiking there. So our entire family was up at 5:00 am to make the carpool rendezvous at El Paseo de Saratoga at 6:00 am for the approximately two hour drive.

We left the house a bit late but, as it happened, our friend Deb left her hiking boots at home and had to retrieve them. Thankfully, we didn't miss our carpool. Le Boulanger wasn't open yet, so I walked to Peets and got a coffee for me and some pastries for Duane and the kiddo. It was so early, I didn't have time to eat like I usually do before I left.

For this hike, we used our new backpacks. I put my new Thermarest sleeping pad and ultralight two person tent in my backpack, as well as a can of pumpkin, for added weight. I have yet to buy a sleeping bag. After adding all of the usual things in my backpack, it weighed about 25 pounds. I normally carry about 15 pounds in a loaded day pack, so I figured that was about right for today. I have about two months to get up to 40-45 pounds. I also didn't want to push it, given that I am as of yesterday a Mud Run survivor!

We took the Mill Valley exit off of Highway 101, which was the scenic route out to the seashore. I hadn't planned ahead, so I took the route my GPS offered without question even though I remembered that it probably would have been faster to go out through San Anselmo. The drive was beautiful winding roads over the back of Mt. Tamalpais down past Stinson Beach, the scene of many happy childhood and family memories.

Our two carpools met at the Estero Trailhead parking lot. We readied our packs and set off through a grassy meadow. The weather was pleasant and the temperature, mild. About 15 minutes into the hike, we entered a pine forest for a short distance, before beginning to head down sandstone hills towards the water's edge. Spring wildflowers are now out in full bloom, gracing our trail with their beauty, and causing me to fall further and further behind the pack as I stop to take photographs. Of particular note, were the many beautiful wild purple irises, pink fringed checker mallow and ice plant blossoms.

The trail conditions, however, were among the worst I have ever seen. There has evidently been no trail management for years. No diagonal boards have been placed on the trail to control run off and erosion. I had to be very careful where to put my feet in several places, for fear of twisting an ankle. Whether this negligent maintenance of the trail is due to some poorly reasoned pseudo-ecological policy, or whether it's a funding issue, I have no idea, but the sad result is the same.

The Estero Trail is aptly named, as it follows a finger of Drake's Estero or Estuary, called Home Bay. We descended to sea level, crossing Home Bay on a wooden bridge, before climbing once again over another small hill. We reached the junction of the Estero Trail and the Sunset Beach Trail and then had to make a decision: would we go out to Sunset Beach and have lunch there (a total of 8.4 miles), or would we continue to Drake's Head (for a total of 9.4 miles). Most of the hikers had not been to the Point Reyes lighthouse, so they opted for the shorter hike giving themselves time to see the lighthouse. Since we had already been to the Lighthouse, we thought about taking the longer hike out to Drake's Head, however, given my already sore muscles, we opted for the shorter hike.

By this point, the trail was really mostly a cow pasture and all of us were carefully avoiding cow patties. A couple of cows stood by peacefully grazing, occasionally gazing up at with disinterest. We walked on by. Eventually, we arrived at Sunset Beach, which could only have been named because people have watched the sunset from this spot. We sat down on some large driftwood logs and ate our lunch. The kiddo mostly played in the mud at water's edge. The "beach" was mostly covered in ice plant, which was blooming.

The rest of our group sped back to the parking lot so that they could make it to the lighthouse. We dawdled at the beach and soaked up some warm sunshine before heading back to the parking lot. On the way back, we had a beautiful view of snowy egrets on Home Bay and in the tops of the trees in the pine forest we had crossed at the start. Also visible were the meanders cutting their way through the estuary and which we could now see, their locations being revealed by the sun's afternoon position.

What a beautiful day!

The Mud Squad

Many months ago, I agreed to do something absolutely ridiculous today. My friend Deb asked me to do the Big Sur Mud Run with her. I immediately responded, "Sure! Why not?"

I should have looked at the video of previous Mud Runs before registering. The videos showed hoardes of runners wading through four mud pits, vaulting six and three foot walls, crawling through mud under camouflage netting for a total distance of five miles. Totally covered in mud. Yuck! On the positive side, there would be cute USMC drill instructors cheering us on (yelling at us, actually) and a beer stop. (A beer stop in the middle of the race? I guess dehydration isn't a big issue...)

But it was too late! I was committed. Worse yet, there is not a single obstacle course to be found in the South Bay on which I could practice. How would I get over a six foot wall? I tried to push it out of my mind. Fortunately, it was January so this was pretty easy.

Nevertheless, I have been going to 24 Hour Fitness several times a week in an effort to lose weight and be more physically fit. But would this help? I'm not a runner. Not even remotely. With a bad Achilles tendon and a bad knee on on my right side, I felt doubtful I could do this. I could definitely walk it. But then there would be no way I would ever keep up with Deb or even Karen, who also registered to run with us.

Making the best of a ridiculous situation, I resolved to make us matching tee shirts, even though we were two people shy of a team. Duane decided we would be the Mud Squad, and it stuck! (Remembering Clarence fondly, I wondered which one of us would don an afro through the mud pits.) Of course, the only available color for our tee shirts was white. Mud. White. Good grief!

I also made reservations to stay in Marina, the night before the race at the Ramada Inn in order to avoid the long drive to Monterey on race day, March 27, 2010. After that, I tried not to think about it for the next three months, more or less successfully.

But time passes and before I knew it, it was the week of the Mud Run. I went to DSW and bought a cheap pair of running sneakers, with webbing instead of canvas or leather so that water would pass through them and they might stay on my feet. I packed some duct tape to tape my shoes on my feet. I had heard that people lost shoes running through the mud pits. Yuck! I packed my nylon/spandex gym pants, a workout bra tank top, extra clothes and a towel. I taped my magnetic clip on sunglasses to my glasses and attached my glasses to a strap in order to keep them on my head. I packed the oldest sun visor I had. It happened to be a Cal Bear visor. It was going to get muddy. Sorry Dad!

Deb drove down ahead of us, and I picked up Karen at the Sons of Norway hall in Los Gatos at 9:00 pm before heading down. That worked out fine as the kiddo had a Little League baseball game at 5:00 pm. We had just enough time to pick Karen up before leaving town. That was probably the most fortuitous part of the event. Duane happens to be Norwegian and in all the years he has lived in the South Bay, he somehow never found his way to the Sons of Norway. (I distinctly remember being promised a lutefisk dinner shortly after we were married, but this somehow never came to pass.) We were pretty tired by the time we got to our hotel, so we went to sleep immediately.

The next morning, I got up and got dressed and ready to go. I skipped the shower. Why bother, given what was to come? I went down to the lobby and had a waffle, a glass of orange juice and some coffee for breakfast. We saw a team of pirates, complete with swords, having breakfast. I wondered how they were going to get through the mud pits with their swords. Some of them had come all the way from Oregon to run this race! That's a long way to come to get muddy.

We drove out to the California State University Monterey Bay campus. The starting gate was in a parking lot just off the highway. It turns out that the orange shoe tag that I received in the mail, along with my bib number, contains some pretty nifty electronics, probably an RFID chip, that identifies start and finish times. And perhaps times at a few other locations as well.

I had only a few minutes to run to the porta potties before proceeding to the starting area, so I took my opportunity. Deb and I were in the first wave of 500 runners. Karen was in the second wave, but she joined us anyway. No one seemed to mind. All of the participants then did warms ups in the starting area. Sit ups, push ups, etc., all to the commands of our drill instructor emcee who didn't hesitate to tell us we were doing it wrong.

3... 2... 1... and our drill instructor fired the starting pistol! Off we went. I started off jogging at a decent clip. I jogged until I ran out of breath and then walked for a while, then started running again. Deb stayed with me and we decided to do intervals: running for a while, then fast walking for a while. The first part of the race was on a paved road over rolling hills. So far so good.

After about a mile and a half, we left the pavement for a trail that wound through scrub and ice plant. We could hear the yells before we even reached the first mud pit, which contained several three foot high, plastic orange road dividers. We had to climb over these and keep going through the mud. As I entered the muddy water, I screamed at the cold temperature!

We continued along this trail, which was very sandy and difficult to jog on, over and down some steeper hills. At times I was looking at the ground so I wouldn't misstep, but there were moments when I would look up and see a gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean beyond. That was enough to make it all worth it! I continued to do intervals. Drill instructors along the way exhorted us to do better. During one of my fast walking intervals, one Marine drill instructor told me that if I didn't start running he was going to make me do "mountain climbers." I looked at him, picking up my pace as I went past, saying "Sir, I don't even know what those are." But I was sure I didn't want to find out! I kept jogging.

We came to the second obstacle, which was a six foot wall followed by a mud pit. Prior to starting, we had been instructed on how to get over these walls. You put a foot on the step and then lift yourself over, dropping down the other side feet first. Apparently some people were vaulting these walls head first - and landing on their head on the other side. Not very bright. I put my foot on the step, hopped, and didn't really go anywhere. I tried to pull myself up. I tried to lift a leg over. Nope. Too tall. In the couple of seconds that I was pondering just how to do this, someone came up from behind and pushed me over, much to my surprise! I never saw who, but in my surprise I managed to bruise my forearms and left leg going over the wall. Right after the wall was the second mud pit. We were instructed to get down on our knees and elbow and crawl through a foot of mud. I modified this to keep my wrist brace in the air, which resulted in my white tee-shirt not getting quite as muddy as everyone elses. Still I had a good splattering of mud all over.

Now we were back on pavement for a while and near the top of a hill, we reached the "beer stop". Beer on one side, and water on the other. I was really ambivalent about the beer. It was after all only 10:00 am or so. I grabbed some water. Deb grabbed some beer and poured a bunch of it over my head. So I poured some water over hers. At that point, I decided that since I now smelled like beer, I may as well have one. (Mind you, this was not a pint, but a dixie cup of beer!) Not wanting to dehydrate myself, however, I drank another water after that.

We jogged on, leaving the pavement again for another sandy trail. The next obstacle was down a steep hill into some kind of training area with large telephone poles and netting. Whatever this was for, it looked like fun! This obstacle was a 4 inch wooden beam over a mud pit. If you didn't balance, you would fall into the mud. This was followed by another six foot wall. I handled the balance beam in short order, but the six foot wall was a problem. As I stepped up, a very gracious Marine cupped his hands and said "Step here!" I said "Thanks" and did as instructed. This time I made it over the wall and dropped down the other side.

We jogged on and eventually we passed another Marine drill instructor who informed us that we only had about a mile to go. Really!? Wow! I was really going to finish this! I was feeling pretty good and still doing intervals. My ankle wasn't hurting much either. Yeah! Eventually we reached the last obstacle: a mud pit, about a foot deep, with camoflage netting spread across the top of it. We had to crawl underneath the netting in the mud on our knees and elbows, while Marines were scooping up muddy water and throwing it at us. One of them got me pretty good in the face too.

As we came out of this mud pit, there were spectators watching for their friends and family, barely recognizable being covered in mud. I swear I heard Duane laughing, but I wasn't able to find him. We jogged a bit further and did our final lap around the stadium before crossing the finish line and receiving our finishers tee shirts and medallions. My time was 1:21:43. I didn't finish last; there were at least 100 people behind me (and likely more since some people didn't put their shoe tags on correctly and their times didn't register). Karen, who finished about ten minutes ahead of us, found us at the final mud pit and did the final lap again with us, so we finished as a team. Cool!

We ate a few orange slices and a couple of pieces of chocolate at the finish line. I felt a lot better after getting some sugar in me again. Then we found Duane and the kiddo and drove back to the hotel for a nice hot shower - and bath! Needless to say, we were pretty well covered, but of the three of us, I somehow managed to stay the cleanest. There were still several large white areas on my tee shirt. I'm not quite sure how I managed to miss getting mud there too.

We celebrated by going to Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey and having a fabulous lunch at Isabella's, after which we went to the beach for a short while, flew a dragon kite and dipped our feet in the icy cold water.

It's Downhill All The Way

I haven't been skiing since January 2004, a little more than a year before my brain tumor was diagnosed. It was something I used to love to do. At one point I was getting pretty good at it. I was paralleling and able to do intermediate slopes - and even a black diamond now and then. There's something about the beauty of snow-covered peaks, silver-tipped firs, and the serene quiet of just me and my skis shushing down the slopes that's very compelling.

So when my friend Deb asked me to go skiing with the girls up at Kirkwood, I almost literally jumped at the chance - after asking hubby if I could have a girls weekend off! He kindly agreed and off I went. We stayed at our friend Joy and Lenny's cabin in Pioneer, driving up about 3.5 hours from home on Friday night. What a wonderful pied-a-terre, about a 45 minute drive from Kirkwood. The weather had been stormy on Friday and I wasn't looking forward to a drive to the mountains in bad weather, but we were very fortunate. The rain stopped about halfway through our trip and, although I was carrying chains, I never had to use them. We arrived at the cabin at about 10 pm, after stopping at the grocery store for breakfast items. Soon we were snug in our beds, with the wood stove fired up and sound asleep.

The next morning, we woke up early, admiring the view from the foothills of the Sierra and making a pot of coffee. I made myself some Cream of Wheat with raisins and brown sugar for breakfast. Yum! We got dressed in our ski clothes - some of us looking more fashionable than others - and drove the 45 minute trek to Kirkwood. Although there was a chain check, we never had to put them on. It was a gorgeous clear day with beautiful new powder on the ground. I'm used to skiing in the hard, wet "Sierra cement", so clearly this was going to be a new experience for me.

I rented my skis, poles and boots for two days. Boot technology has obviously improved since the last time I went skiing. The boots were vastly more comfortable than they had been in the past. When I learned to ski, I learned on straight skis. Shortly after that, they came out with parabolic skis which were vastly easier to turn! Deb opted to learn snowboarding and purchased an equipment/lesson package. I had purchased discount lift tickets at Costco, so I didn't have to pay full price at Kirkwood.

At last, the moment of truth had arrived. Would I still be able to ski without falling down? I wondered. It had been a long time and I still am struggling to lose the weight that I gained when I was ill. I slid my boots into my skis until they clicked and away I went, down to the lift. So far, so good. The lift would be the real test: if I could get off the lift without falling, then I would be fine. I did, and I was.

Lenny went off to do the black diamond and double black diamond slopes. He is an expert skier. My only regret of the weekend was that I didn't get to watch Lenny ski down those slopes. I'm sure I would have been in awe! Joy and I stayed on the green runs, just taking our time and enjoying the scenery and some quiet time together. Deb spent the first part of her morning in a lesson on the same run as us. We passed her, usually on her behind in the snow, on the lift several times. We waved and gave her a good "Woo hoo!"

The lodge was, unfortunately, at the other end of the ski area from us, so we were relegated to a makeshift cafeteria that served cold food that got ever colder as we ate it outside. I didn't really care that much. We sat at a metal picnic table that had obviously had so much snow on it, that the metal seats and table edge had bent from the weight of it.

We had a few more runs after lunch, this time with Deb fresh from her lesson. Our last run of the day was on an intermediate (blue) run. This run was quite bit longer than the green bunny runs, and a bit steeper. Deb took a good spill. I don't think I've ever seen anyone fall so many times and keep getting up. I admired her just for that. I really had to focus in order to keep from landing on my own derriere.

We called it a day around 3:00 pm and drove back to town, stopping at the store to pick up groceries for dinner. We decided on some steaks, baked potatoes, and a nice salad. But first, we got to take a nice long dip in the hot tub. This was really nice for our tired, sore and aching muscles. The only difficulty was getting from the back door to the hot tub, as it was really cold outside!

Afterwards, we got dinner ready. Lenny cooked the meat, and I made the salad and baked potatoes. I employed the Duane-method of microwaving potatoes and they turned out perfect! Lenny made his signature melon balls and I made Irish coffee. The melon balls were absolutely wonderful! We watched some television and then called it a night. We had another day of skiing in the morning.

The following morning, we went back to Kirkwood, this time going over to the main area, complete with lodge. The runs here were longer and more interesting, but also more tiring as there were fewer rides on the lift in between. Halfway through my first run, I got a really bad cramp in my calf, right at the place where the boot buckles. It was bad enough that I needed to give it a rest, so I went to the lodge and got a nice hot cup of tea and watched all the athletes ski down the slopes. I really enjoyed this quiet time. I had a wonderful view of the ridgeline and the double black diamond runs coming off the top. I imagined Lenny must going down those and was amazed that anyone at all could do that. It certainly looked impossible.

Pretty soon I was joined by Joy and Deb and later Lenny. We had a really nice gourmet lunch at the lodge before calling it a day. After returning our rental equipment, we drove back to the cabin and, while everyone else had a nice hot tub, I curled up on the couch and watched the end of a movie I had started to watch the night before. I didn't quite nap, but I did have a good rest before leaving for the long drive home.

What a wonderful weekend! My thanks to Joy and Lenny for inviting us up there!