Tuesday I felt much better then the previous day and was hopeful that I was over the hump of this cold. I attended the gym PT session with hopes it would be low key. I was informed on its onset that it would be a relatively easy session. Shortly after starting, I realized that was not being very honest with me as we started with 103 four counts of are favorites exercises (push ups, flutter kicks, rockstar jumps, etc). It was definitely more then my body wanted as I was experience moments of lightheadness and near fainting. I survived without injury and decided it probably best that I take another day off from running.
As with the previous day I woke up feeling better then the last. It was a pool day and I survived with minimal discomfort. That night I decided I would head to the gym and give running a chance. Unlike previous gym running sessions, I decided to run on the treadmill instead of the track because my IT Bands were over the endless, Nascar like, almost continuous left turn after left turn. To my surprise, I had a great run. I was able to run 5 miles in 41 minutes with minimal difficulty. The cardio and body felt like I hadn't even had a cold.
Thursday, I had a 3 mile group run with the rest of my UMOC class. The run was frequently interrupted with calisthenics but overall a nice run and my first run outside in 1.5 months as the temps/conditions in CT were finally getting tolerable. It was also an exciting day because I knew I was finally traveling back to San Diego tomorrow to see my lovely wife as well as a weekend full of other fun endeavors like PCT run and Minute to Win It party.
Friday was an off day as I had a busy day with training and then a long day of flying back to SD. I did however get a descent 2 hour pool PT session in full of a 1000m bayfin, pool hits, treading water with 20lb weights and then underwater football.
Saturday I had arranged a run out in East County San Diego with a group of friends. Originally, I had planned to do a 16 mile run at Upper Sweetwater River however, with the current rain storms in San Diego I decided that it would likely be fairly flooded and I was already sick of swimming from my training in Groton. It is amazing to me that after suffering freezing temps and snow for the last 6 weeks that I would be coming back to rain storms and cool temps in San Diego. Especially after San Diego had recently had such beautiful temps. I can't catch a break sometimes. Anyways, so my buddy Toby and I analyzed the situation and decided to change the run to the PCT from Boulder Oaks going south to Lake Morena. The run is a 12 mile out and back with the option of tacking on more miles by heading north on the PCT. We had also been wanting to run this section since last summer and was one of the few sections of the PCT I had yet run in So Cal.
That morning I woke up to a nice surprise. The rain had stopped and the temps were in the mid 50s setting up a promosing morning for a run. That was soon crushed as we were heading to SDRI to carpool to Boulder Oaks with several other runners. Kath Baker called to suggest switching the run yet again, recommending a more local trailas she sit in her car outside of Boulder Oaks Campground as the rain poured down and temps were only in the high 30s. Kath had planned to get out there earlier and run from Cibbets Flat south on the PCT to Boulder Oaks where she would meet us and run to Lake Morena and back. After she called I hemmed and hawed about the situation for awhile, spoke with Andrea and Toby and decided people were already headed out there lets just give it a shot. Plus, we are rough and tough ultrarunners who live for the challenging stuff (at least that what we were going to tell ourselves :)).
I am so glad that we decided to keep with the original plans. It was dark, raining hard and the temp on the car's thermometer keep falling until in hovered to just over 40s as we made our way east. When we finally arrived to Boulder Oaks, to our surprise, it was quite "beautiful" out. The rain had slowed in the nick of time and the temps really didn't feel that bad as I was use to the much colder temps in Groton.
There were 13 of us in total.
Once everyone was bundled and said there hellos, we headed off south on the PCT. This was soon interrupted by a large river which was over waist deep (it wasn't me who tested it out) that had randomly appeared.
We took several minutes to look for a place to cross without avail. We decided that we would likely have more success heading north on the PCT towards Cibbets Flat as it is up hill with less places for water or a river to accumulate. The problem with this is it is up hill pretty much the whole first half of the run. We charged on. After a brief time on the trail it was bringing back fond memories of the PCT 50 mile run last year as this is also the first section of that race. It also reminded me of how hard the first part of this run is and how I ended up having to DNF after suffering significant dehydration. As we continued to gain altitude an amazing thing happened. It began to snow. This was the first time I had experienced this in all my running out in East County. It looked like a winter wonderland with large, puff snow flakes. I wasn't even bothered by the continued falling temps because it was such an amazing site.
Once we reached the turn around point the temps had fallen quite a bit and we were all pretty cold. We decided to only stop briefly. Enough time to grab some nutrition and take a leak. As we descended the trail back down to Boulder Oaks the winter wonderland turn into the not so lovely wintery mix. At this point, we put on the burners and made good time the rest of the way down to the cars as the rain was getting heavier. PHEW! Back in the cars dry, warm and uninjured. Overall, what had originally hyped as a not so great run turned out to be one of the most unique runs I have had out in East County. Ran 11 miles in just over 2 hours with 1500+ feet of climb.
Sunday I took a well deserved break and spent my last day in SD with Andrea.
Weekly Mileage: 20 mi
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