Back to Black Mountain for a big change!

That nearby summit of almost 3,000 feet used to be my weekly playground. Between the focus on road and distance training for Spartathlon in 2023, then the meniscus injury 12 months ago, my last run up there was March 25, 2023. I wouldn't have remembered, I'm glad to have kept a detailed running log for 29 years! Anyway, 2 years since I went on Black Mountain, time flies so fast...

As I wrote last week in my Big Bunny 5K race report, I have to work on my endurance and hill training to prepare for my next races, this Spring. So why not right away? The glutes had worked a lot to power the pace on Saturday but I wasn't sore the next morning. Still, after all these months not running hills, or not running at all last for 7 months last year as a matter of fact, my main goal was to just go the ultra distance, with a conservative pace. So, here I go on the Mountain, last Sunday.

Incidentally, I was pleased to see so much water, first in the Stevens Creek Reservoir, then all the creeks flowing. I write this post thinking this may serve as a geological survey. Who knows, when water get much scarier in the future, most probably, it might be interesting to some to find some information about our past. Speaking of surveyors, I was thinking of my buddies whom I was running these trails 10+ years ago: Charles Stevens, Mark Williams, Chuck Wilson, Chris Garcia, ... Will a younger generation take over monitoring these trails through running?

Running wise, I managed to actually run the whole 28.5 miles, even the steep Indian Creek on the back side of Black Mountain. Very promising to still have the stamina. And some glutes to power up. And shorter strides/steps as you can see on this chart, around mile 15. Two images came back to mind wile powering up, two tips from ultra legends: Hal Korner's diesel mode, and Scott Jurek imagining his head/mind being pulled by a string.

As a matter of fact, the downhills were way more annoying, triggering pain in the left knee, dang. Here is a Relive.cc flyover.

Beyond the knee pain, the worst experience on that Sunday was an encounter with cyclists rushing down Montebello Road. Fearing those as much as they fear cars driving up, I was running up the hill on the left side of the road, against traffic, as pedestrians have to. I'm always thinking of such potential encounters so, in a turn, I was carefully running on the left side of the white stripe, in a turn. And not fast as it was steep. A first cyclist was surprised to see me. He wasn't even close to the side but deviated toward me anyway, the reflex to avoid a potential car coming up. Now, the second biker had plenty of time to see me but decided to yell at me, like I was the danger! A loud and infuriated: "Come on!" to which I replied with all my energy and yelling "F..k you!" At least the third cyclist stayed mute... Between the emotion and shouting with all I had, I had to walk a few steps to catch my breath, phew! Really, I get it is stressful to ride down Montebello at 50 miles per hour, but to act like you own the road... Disgusting behavior.

Not counting a few pit stops to enjoy the views, I clocked an average of 9:10 min/mile. I would have been encouraged by this start to hill training if it wasn't for the knee pain which resulted and persisted all week, hampering my weekly mileage: 28.6 miles this week versus 65.9 miles last week! I used to average 100 km per week for 9 years, but these 106 km felt like overworking... With my damage knee I might have to just do hill training while racing, and work on strength training otherwise.

From a survey standpoint, I noted that the phone booth at the backpack campground is still up, but without a tone. More like a museum artifact...

No communication but the level of the water reservoir at the top of Black Mountain is healthy at least!