Vertical Turtle: February 2013

This morning's Saturday run was extremely challenging for me. I felt the struggle as soon as the alarm clock went off. Usually, I am excited to hit the trails, especially since we planned to run to a new destination, Monument Peak, but my body felt sluggish. I downed a cup of mate tea, but even that didn't perk me up. So, I figured that I would just deal with a few tough warm-up miles and wait for my body to get into the groove mid-run. The plan was to hit Mission Peak and then continue running over to Monument Peak. We started our climb up to Mission Peak, but every bothersome thing felt amplified: I complained about the ruts in the trail, all of the rocks, all of the people in our way. Burnout Bear tried being as patient as possible, but eventually we started arguing about all sorts of things because I was so grumpy. Eventually, one argument escalated to "Fine, then let's just turn around!" "Okay, fine then!" And we ended up turning around at the base of the very top of Mission Peak, running three miles downhill back to our car in the parking lot without saying another word.

On the way downhill I felt so angry with myself for quitting. The day was certainly not going to improve after ending the run on such a sour note. We returned to the car and quietly split a banana. And then I said, "After finishing this banana, we are going to run up to Mission Peak again. And this time I am not going to quit." I didn't really believe what I was thinking until I heard the words myself. We had never run up Mission Peak twice in a row. After a pause, Burnout Bear said "Okay!" I couldn't believe that he agreed to such craziness.

Well, believe it or not, the second time up Mission Peak was actually much more enjoyable! I was still feeling tired and heavy, but my head was in the game. I had set the goal and my drive to reach the peak was solid. And this time we made it! We asked another couple to take a (tired looking) picture of us to celebrate the moment.

Mission accomplished atop Mission Peak. Whew.

Mission Peak x2 (almost)

Sitting here sipping on homemade ginger tea (helps with inflammation), I can think of a few problems that may have contributed to today's struggle:

Overtraining: I have increased my weekend mileage every weekend over the past two months, (completing 28 miles last weekend) in an attempt to be prepared for a tough 50k in March. I clearly need more recovery time. To do this, I should decrease the total weekend mileage to 12-18 miles on every other weekend. It's better to be under-trained than over-trained, right?
Nutrition: Due to Valentine's Day and my love of chocolate and sweets, I have to admit that my diet was far from ideal the last few days.
Poor Sleep/Stress: This past week I experienced more stress at work and slept poorly.

Obviously, I need to calm down and focus on restoring my body. Time to ease off of the gas there, Turtle. Cheers (ginger tea in hand) to doing that and to no more grumpies!

And here are some views from Mission Peak that I thought I would share:

A bit hazy, but you can still see Mt. Diablo far in the distance.

Looking off into the direction of Monument Peak, our original goal for the day. This stranger's profile says it all!

One of the highlights of getting back out onto the trails is seeing the cows. I rarely saw a real, live cow while living in New York, but here in California they roam the regional parks as freely as rats do in the subways of Manhattan. Oftentimes, I have to stop and wait for cows to move off of the trail ahead of me; it makes me smile every time. I especially enjoy seeing the young, downy calves with their inquisitive eyes. The adult cows avoid humans, as most of them have been branded and know our evil ways too well, but their babies show a sense of wonder and amusement towards us crazy, path-following bipeds.

This past weekend was the highest mileage weekend that I have pulled off this year so far. Prior weekends have resulted in various muscle strains and joint issues due to my body adjustment back to the running regime. But this weekend, I ran 16 miles in Del Valle and then another 12 miles around Brushy Peak. While these trails did not contain any huge mountains, I at least pulled several thousand feet of climbing without my body yelling at me and enjoyed seeing hundreds of cows while doing so... Success! :)