Bull's Run - did it
Its been on the cards for such a long time ; since the hiking days with Han and team at Almaden Quicksilver I've always admired those that ran past us when we were hiking to the the prize that was known as Bull's run.
On Saturday, I figured that had to be in the path to get to the 13 miles I planned to run [still preparing for big sur].
The highlights:
- beautiful fog covered morning, cold to the point that I started with 2 layers and gloves
- some equestrian event was in progress - so there were a great many horses and riders on the trail. Didn't pass a horse that was shorted than seven feet!
- Made good time on the way up - 5.09 in 0:59.
Wrong, turned out to be a 5.67 mile loop and it didn't help that I got confused between Mine hill trail, April Trail and Castillero trails. All in all when I came back to Bull's run I had clocked 10 miles and it was 2h 43m into the run.
Anyways after reaching summit and knowing the way back was going to be downhill most of the ways I was faced with the challenge of conserving the big muscles because I felt the cramps coming. Fortunately for me I managed to keep them at bay until I got to the reservoir [mile 13]. After another 0.25miles I decided that pushing it further might be debilitating. So ended up walking the last 1.75 miles @ 2.8mph.
- Distance: 14.99miles
- Elapsed time: 3:57
- Average pace: 15:49/mi [last 2 miles were at 21:40 pace]
- Ascent : 4261 ft [2 times from 200ft to 1638ft]
- Descent: 4223 ft
Lesson learnt, make a plan and stick to it. I think I will have to do 2 more Bull runs to figure out if I am in shape to embark on Big Sur.
