Black Mountain: some grit, glutes and fire!

I like racing because it gives us an opportunity to run with more fire and train harder. I mean, racing provides great training. But racing also provides extra motivation to train harder, between races. It's no secret, I see opportunities to actually work on this hobby at every turn of the trail, to the first degree, up to calling it my second job!

So, one week after Skyline 50K and one week before the Tamalpa Headlands 50K Trail Nationals, I was up to Black Mountain to do a... 50K training run; told you!

It was my 5th trip up to Black Mountain this year, or since I came back from the meniscus tear for that matter. I used to run up there once or twice a month in the good ol’ days but, nowadays, it certainly is not as easy as it used to be. It’s the highest point I can easily run to from home so still a key objective for hill training. In these better days, I enjoyed flying down Montebello Road on the way back but, with the damaged knee, it’s now too much pounding. I adapted my route to run down along Stevens Creek, a direction where most of the downhill happens on the Stevens Creek Canyon Trail, limiting the asphalt section to a few flatter miles on Stevens Creek Canyon Road.

Now back to the Stevens Creek Reservoir at the end of the Canyon Road, I go up on the gnarly Lookout Trail then add a loop down Seven Springs in Fremont Older Park, before returning home along the track. Good for 35 miles. Or 31 this time as I called Agnès for a pickup at the track, feeling I had done enough between the Skyline and Tamalpa Headlands 50K races, not to mention my knees whispering they have had enough. Some good grit still in the uphills in particular, some good glutes work.

But, back to the title, not with as much fire as while racing but I still like pushing myself, just for the sake of it and to test my grit and work on my glutes. But, wait, what fire was that?

I just posted about another Black Mountain run in which I shared about this cool encounter with an olive tree I hadn't noticed for years. Well, poor tree; 2 weeks later, it got pretty hot and half burnt...

Hopefully my new olive tree friend hasn't burnt to its core and will survive this endeavor. But for this year's olive harvesting, that seems quite compromised... Just when I was asking for peace...

After 20 years of running these trails, it was the first time I saw traces of fire in the Black Mountain vicinity. As I was ironically on Waterwheel Creek Trail, a trail which very few people use, I was surprised to see quite a large area burnt, below the trail. The fire stopped right at/along the trail so certainly a managed fire but, still quite impressive and chilling to see; especially when imagining the risk of putting dry grass and bush on fire in the middle of the summer, and the skills it must take to contain such a danger of a fire spreading around!

There you are for a new episode of my Black Mountain Chronicle series! 

Not sure if it is Gold Mine or Waterwheel Creek flowing at the limit between Palo Alto and Cupertino, it is still flowing strong and provides a refreshing stop, short of being able to refill bottles.

Oh, can't resist sharing a picture of the newly renovated bathroom at the Sycamore Group Site: what a nice work, posting here to see how it evolves over the years. Right now, it's still in "Japanese subway cleanliness" state, hoping this holds for a a while!

It was another hot day on the trail when not in the shade and good training for the upcoming 50K race next week. Hopefully with the grit and glutes on fire then!