FUN IN THE CANYONS

With Miners Revenge behind me, it is time to get back into building miles again so that I can be ready to pace Pigeon at the Tahoe Rim Trail 100 Miler in July. Last week was a hard week for me. I took a couple of classes at Diane’s that made me so incredibly sore, running last week was a struggle. I did manage some hill repeats one night although it wasn’t a pretty sight.

When Pigeon reached out to me to plan our Saturday run, I was a little nervous. She gave me some options but she really wanted to get some time on her feet in the canyons which involves a lot of climbing (both up and down). My shaky tired legs were a bit nervous.

Saturday morning rolled around and I left the house ready to meet Pigeon and drive to Michigan Bluff. I have run this section of trail before in 2010 as part of the Western States Training Run so I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong.

The drive to Michigan Bluff takes about an hour. Pigeon was pretty good at getting us there without too much trouble. After we parked and started to get ready, we noticed that it was pretty darn cold outside. Her temperature gauge in the car had said 40 degrees! We knew it would warm up but boy it was a chilly start to our run.

Right near the parking area (really just in front of some people’s houses) is a monument dedicated to the Western States Trail and Michigan Bluff’s role as a big aid-station in that race.

We weren’t alone when we arrived. There was a group of about 15 boys (teenagers?) who were also unloading their cars. They didn’t look like runners to us at all and so we assumed they were hiking. We never fully figured how who they were or what they were doing but they were pretty funny to run past on our way down into the canyon as they were cheering for us and wishing us a great day.

However, not one mile into our run I had a little malfunction with my Ultimate Direction Jenny Vesta pack. I love this vest/hydration pack more than anything but this is the second or third time I have had this same malfunction. My hair is on the longer side and when I braid it down my back, the braid inevitably gets caught in the pack zipper! So we are starting our run and all of a sudden I can’t lift my head! It is tilted back and totally caught in the zipper. I yell out to Pigeon that I need her help. She stops.

Me: “My hair is caught, can you get it out please?”

Pigeon, “We are not even 1 mile into our run and you are having wardrobe issues? Wait. It’s stuck in that thingy! How did you did you do this? I can’t get it out! It’s stuck in the loopy-d-loop thing!”

Me: “Don’t mess up my hair! Don’t undo my braid!”

Pigeon: “I have to! I can’t get it out!”

We were laughing so hard. I never take myself seriously and clearly our runs always have some element of fun to them.

However, things would change a bit a little further into our run. The first 2.5 miles are a pretty deep descent and Pigeon is loving long descents lately. Me? I like them but I can honestly say they are not my strong suit. I’d rather run up a climb than run down a hill. I know, odd.

Pigeon took off down the descent and soon I lost her yellow jersey from my line of vision. Normally this is how we roll. She goes on ahead and I just take up the rear doing my thing, taking photos, whatever. However there is something about Michigan Bluff and the canyons that had me a bit spooked on this run.

Granted, not more than two months ago Robert “Bob” Root was lost for two days and then ultimately found on this same trail!!! Also, Facebook has been inundated lately with bear and mountain lion sightings all throughout Auburn and other areas. I am petrified of seeing either on the trail (more so the mountain lion).

So of course it was absolutely natural for my mind to go to dark dark places when I was running solo down these long descents where the trail was narrow, foggy and totally in the middle of no where. Sure Pigeon would be waiting at various turns or cross sections, but within moments she’d take off again and I would be mentally picturing in my head some gruesome scene played out around every corner. I know, I know, not smart but that is the way my brain works. I had my cell phone in my pack but of course I had it turned off and all I could think about was “if I get eaten, my phone isn’t ‘on’ so they can’t track my phone!” I need to stop reading scary books the night before I go on these trail runs. Clearly.

Did I share any of these thoughts with Pigeon? Did I tell her how petrified I was? Did I tell her that my heart rate was spiking not because of the physical activity but because I was totally imagining some vampire meets the hunger games scenario in my head? Nah. Instead I would just run my little heart out so that I could get as close to her as possible.

Soon we were climbing which is a good thing because then I was close to her! We were hiking our way up the trail when I heard something off in the distance. Pigeon turns and looks at me and I am smiling.

Pigeon: “What? Why are you smiling?”

Me: “Nothing. Nothing at all. I didn’t hear that gun shot did you?”

Pigeon: “Nope. I didn’t hear those gun shots either.”

Granted, they sounded miles away and it sounded very much like target practice.  Whatever, some sick twisted part of me was thankful for the gun shots as I was hoping it would scare away any four legged creatures that might come eat me.

We continued climbing, up and up we would go, switch back after switch back. There was no one on the trail. It was quiet except for a few birds and the lizards darting through the leaves.

Eventually we made it to Deadwood Canyon. I remembered this section of the trail from 2010 although it looked a lot different.

So of course the curious side of me gets going: “Why is it called Deadwood Cemetery? Is it a real cemetery? What does it mean?” Pigeon has no clue but luckily there are some state park educational billboard things out there to ease inquiring minds (like mine).

These little bits of history were kind of neat. They also calmed me down a bit because if there are state park info boards like this out there, that means we were closer to possible civilization!

The water pump in the above photo was our destination but we had not quite achieved the mileage we wanted so we decided to keep going. As we were running away from the water pump I saw 3 girls running in our direction.

I MAY have been a bit overly excited to see people on the trail that I MAY have squealed “PEOPLE!! PEOPLE!! HI PEOPLE!” Pigeon was pretty mortified but then again, she had no idea WHY I was so overly excited to see these three strangers.

We chatted briefly with them but the time had come for me to come clean with Pigeon and I shared with her how terrified I was earlier on our run. She was shocked and had no clue and couldn’t understand why I would be so frightened. I have a very over active imagination and sometimes it gets the best of me. 🙂

Soon however we had reached our destination, Devil’s Thumb. I have been out at “the thumb” a few times. Once as a volunteer for Western States and then again in 2010 when Pigeon and I ran up and through it. I have to say, I was shocked by what is now left of Devil’s Thumb.

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Pigeon and I took a few moments to wander around and look at all the damage. It truly was heart breaking to see this area just burned almost beyond recognition!

We gathered ourselves together and decided to turn around. Neither one of us wanted to go down to the bottom of Devil’s Thumb only to go back up (the climb is brutal and we’ll be doing it in about 2 weeks anyway).

Our run back was good. Pigeon stayed with me for most of it. We ran into those teenagers again who said hi. The first section of the trail however, involved a large descent and would end with a large climb (the reverse of what we ran out).

Pigeon stayed a little closer to me on some of the downhills. Maybe she didn’t want me to be afraid or maybe she just was taking it easy but at one point, she stopped dead in her tracks which scared the living day lights out of me. Now normally my brain would just think “did she see a mountain lion?” but instead, I had heard what she heard … a motorcycle!

What?! We are on some random single track trail in the middle of no where and it sounded as if there was a highway near by! Nope, barreling around the corner was a guy on a dirt bike.

Luckily, there just happened to be a big rock off to the side that could fit the both of us while the motorcycle dude passed. He also shared with us that there was another guy behind him so we stayed put on our rock. Thank goodness for that rock! It totally saved us from either getting run over by the bikes or worse, getting poison oak by jumping into the bush.

We continued pounding the downhills with Pigeon moving quite a bit faster than myself. We did see a lot of people though on our return trip which was more reassuring. However, my IT band started to yell again a bit at about mile 13.

With the sun peaking out behind various clouds, our return trip was gorgeous. I had to stop to take a few photos (or maybe it was to rest my IT … maybe both?).

Once we got to that bridge, we helped a couple of hikers find their way and then it was a LONG 2.5 mile climb out of that canyon to the car. Pigeon managed to get ahead of me on a few of the switch backs and tried to be “funny” by dropping a rock down from above so that I would freak out. It ALMOST worked but I was onto her. 🙂

We paused a few times to say hi to a few runners along the way and then it was just climb climb climb. Once again, Pigeon stopped, only this time she screamed like a girl (and I say that in the nicest way possible). I grabbed my vital organs (my heart and chest area) and yelled “what!? what!?”

She pauses, ” a lizard!!!”

She screamed because of a lizard. Okay, I may scream because someone’s random dog (off leash) creeps up behind me or because some venomous turkey is on the trail, but she screamed for a lizard!? Okay, maybe this lizard was larger than normal and she almost stepped on it.

We laughed our butts off for a bit on that one and then continued on our way. Soon enough, I was D-O-N-E with this 2.5 up hill climb. I wanted to move so I started running. I ran various stretches of the uphill with Pigeon kind of giggling behind me at my attempts.

She had run 15 miles on Thursday and had some tired legs under her so she was content to work herself up that climb with a solid power hike. Me? I am barely in the shape that she is and I wanted to run to add an extra workout to the day (um, I had mega sore quads this week which I attribute to all the downhill but still, a reminder of what we conquered).

Overall it was a great day. I struggled with some highs and lows. My motivation is on the low side since finishing some of my key races but I want to keep my fitness levels on the up and up because:

1. It feels amazing to be able to go out and run the canyons on a few days notice;

2. I have a Western States Training run in 2 weeks (that is 30 plus miles); and

3. I have to pace Pigeon anywhere between 20 and 30 miles for Tahoe Rim Trail in July and I want to be ready.

This run also gave me a chance to try some new fueling and experiment more with running with my heart rate strap but secured a little tighter.

My favorite part of the run was all the laughter. Pigeon and I generally have a fun time on the trails and I always know she’d never leave me or risk my safety. I was out of my element a bit but it was also a little invigorating! Not saying I’d go out and run that route solo like a few of the other runners we saw (no thank you) but it does make me feel good inside and out.

Once again my recovery was nonexistent. My body was quite sore come Monday and I didn’t really rest much at all. Stretching MUST become my new best friend otherwise, I think my running days may be numbered. I see Dr. Lau this week and I am sure he will tell me the same thing.

This coming weekend I have a 10 mile race that I am not so sure how to tackle. Part of me wants to run hard and gauge my fitness level, part of me wants to run it easy so my body can fully recover and part of me wants to run with TiggerT who is also doing the race and would be somewhere in between. I have never been on the course before so really I am going into it with no real expectations. I just want to run.

Just so long as the course elevation looks nothing like it did last Saturday!

Happy Trails!

~Trailmomma