Vertical Turtle: The Litmus Test of Old, Familiar Runs

For this "off" weekend, we decided to run familiar routes and see how they felt after weeks of training.

On Saturday, we ran 9 miles out-and-back with the Mission Peak Striders along Mill Creek Road in Fremont. The road weaves through a valley between several hills up towards Mission Peak, following Mill Creek for most of the way. The first 4.5 miles climb up Mill Creek Road approx. 1400 feet. So, it is certainly a climb, but is runnable. The road ends with a beautiful vista over Sunol, a wonderful treat for reaching the top of the road. (Note that you can continue past the gate up to Mission Peak along a trail from this point.) I actually find the 4.5 mile post-turnaround downhill stretch to be the hardest - either my shins or knees act up. I love this run, but wish it was on an unpaved fire road, instead.

I felt strangely tired on this run, and actually ran a bit slower than I did a month prior! This was extremely disappointing. The work week prior was busier and a bit more stressful than usual, so perhaps this interfered with the quality of my run? I hope that is the case because another possible answer is that I am simply not improving.

To aid in recovery, Burnout Bear and I eat a dinner of wild Atlantic salmon once per week. After my slow run on Saturday, I figured that I could use the omega 3s and prepared the fish with Parmesan-crusted roasted fennel, mashed potatoes and asparagus. We cut up the left over fennel fronds and mixed them into the potatoes, which worked well. The roasted fennel was amazing and tasted just like onion rings!

Brushy Peak

Then, on Sunday we ran 7 miles around familiar Brushy Peak. This is one of my favorite runs because there is always something new to see. I felt much stronger today and the hills seemed noticeably easier than they did 4 weeks ago. I don't know if I just had a better run than the day prior, or omega 3s are miracle workers, or perhaps my body is simply adapting more to trails. I felt reassured that I am, in fact, slowly improving but will still encounter good running days and bad ones and will continue to have a rocky relationship with the watch if I scrutinize it too closely. I guess this litmus test was not as clear as I had hoped! Back to training!