Trail Running

A week before my Manitou Revenge race. I came back to my beloved twins ski slope hills by the Silvermine Lake at Bear Mountain. It was so amazing how green was the vegetation now compare to a few weeks ago.
This time, I was training on how to run or hike up the hills in moderate pace. I wanted to work it up yet not pushing my body too much, so that I would not be drained at the end of the running. Also I wanted to train on my downhill run, where I should be running lightly by using the gravity, and at the same time I would not trash my legs and energy.

At the end of the day, it was a good day. I managed to run /hike 6 sets, and I found my good pace that I could use on my race next week.

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A week after Manitou pre-race night run, I felt that I needed to train my night vision capability. So Chang and I planned to do a night run on Friday night after work. That day, it had been raining all day, and we had an all out thunderstorm the whole afternoon. It was a full package of pouring rain, lighting and thunder overlapping one after another. But by 7:30 pm it died down. So we decided that the night run was on.
We started to run by 10 pm. It was a pitch dark, but the sky was decorated by a full golden moon with starry stars around it. It was slippery, water on the trail or more like we were running on a stream, and we got fogs in some places. Also I heard an animal growling that sounded like a bear, and better yet a half mile away from the parking lot at the end of the run, there were a pair of eyes that was following us for a few minutes. But it was a good run and we were all come back alive.

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A week after my fail attempt to finish Cayuga 50 miles and 2 weeks before Manitou, I really got a cold feet. With 14000 ft total gain in 54 miles (4000 more than Cayuga) and super technical, it would be my toughest race yet. The race director, Charlie, he was so nice that he was willing to take us to taste the last 16 miles of the race, and it was a night run. Which was make sense, because there would be a big chance that I would run this section after dark. Despite my hip flexor that just recover, I braced myself to drive up there and met up with a group of people, and doing an overnight run in Catskill. Even with my fresh legs, it was pretty tough gnarly run. Crossed my fingers that I would be ready physically and mentally.

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It was a long weekend and I thought I should hit another easy trail with a little scrambling. And the answer was the Gunks. The downside was, there were too many recreational hikers that made me stop and walked a few times. But it was a good day with a perfect weather that I couldn’t ask more.

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