A new year. A new starting line. A new track.

I have mixed feelings about switching years. I've gone through a lot of change, including living and working in several countries, and benefited a lot from it. But I don't like the change for the sake of change as I've seen some leaders over doing at work. I much prefer the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it!" principle and adage.

In sales, a new year means all the counters get reset and you have to start from scratch on a new quota. For me as a runner, it's also pretty much that game as, like many others, I keep track of a bunch of yearly statistics in my log. Distance, time, number of races, number of ultras, mileage for each pair of shoes, average pace, deltas with previous year's marks, number of log entries, race entry fees, ... Short of leveraging a coach, I'd better get organized to monitor myself...

With that, all the yearly counters got to zero on the morning of New Year's Day. For 8 of my top years, I was able to get to 3,100 miles, an average of 100 km a week, by early December, early enough to take a refreshing 3-week break, following an advice and habit I got from Scott Jurek upon getting into ultra running. Last year, still easing up after the meniscus injury of 2023, I finished with 4,600 kilometers (2,860 miles) but with only 4 days to spare. Hopefully the lower weekly mileage will count toward resting then...

It was supposed to rain all day on this first day of the year but we got some lucky and welcomed lull at the end of the morning. I wanted to start the year with a bang, running 50K, although I was a bit hesitant of holding on for 4 hours in the rain. A short sun shine did help with the motivation to toe a new start line for 2026.

Agnès loves that we start the year running our first mile together, this is a very sweet and lovely tradition indeed! And so we did!

With that start on the right foot, and only partial drizzle, I managed to run 50K indeed. A solid effort, below a 7:30 min/mile average for the first 20 miles, but slowing down for a marathon close to 3:15 and a 50K just under 3:59 (not counting a few stops to refuel). Jed Smith 50K is earlier than usual this year, on 1/31, so I'd better continue working toward this milestone. Well, the grueling No Hands Half marathon in Auburn will happen next week so that will be another fitness test for the quads and hamstrings in particular. And the glutes which ended up quite sore this Friday, on a 15K recovery run.

Back to the title, what's up about the new track? Kind of old news since I already announced the opening of the resurfaced track we got back in October. What I would add though is that it has become a new test, or proof, of how much civility our society lost since I moved to the US almost 30 years ago. When you can feel it even in a place like Cupertino, you know we are going backward. Over the past months, I feel I've been the Don Quixote of that track. Not that I even come every week, but the handful of times I've come for some track work.

Last weekend, more than 50 young adults came to play flag football. While it's heartwarming to see them exercise as a group this way, the closest door to the track was closed so we had to go around the bleaches to find the only open door. Despite me telling more than a dozen of them about the open gate, they all decided to climb over the fence. Plus 20 or so older adults playing soccer that Sunday.

Feeling like the fence has traces of a herd of bulls running over it...

I've had to tell families coming on the track with their bikes that no wheels were allowed on the track. Per the rules posted at multiple places around the track, and the entrance of the campus.

Then 2 ladies walking 3 dogs, not only on the campus, but who wanted to cut through the track to save 20 yards.

The worst was the day after Christmas with 2 teens riding a powerful ebike on the track with tires equipped with huge crampons, enough to compete with a motocross bike! I didn't have my camera with me to catch that, I regret. They hesitated to comply when I asked them to stop and leave, but they must have seen my resolve.

The point is that I would hate the district has to close that amazing track on weekends. I've traveled around the world, having visited 71 countries so far, and I can assure you there isn't another place on Earth where such top quality athletics facilities are freely open to the public this way, without even anyone monitoring.

And the rules are pretty clear and posted in multiple places...

Other than these disappointing incidents, I was super impressed with the number of people on the track during the 4 hours I was there. Great to see so many good resolutioners! :-) And let's make sure we keep the track as new as possible for the next 20 years (it was originally built in 2005 and this is the first resurfacing).

Yes, let's get to log a few more miles in 2026, while we can! (*)

(*) Special thoughts for Ann Trason, the queen of ultra running in the 90s, setting multiple world records, winning Western States 14 times, who managed to log more than 100 miles over 5 days, pushing her walker as she is battling an advanced form of rheumatoid arthritis. Much inspiration and respect, Ann! For us, no more excuses not to get out of the door and keep moving and pushing the limits! (Photo source: https://www.facebook.com/aravaiparunning)

Laborious training on Labor Day weekend

I know, it’s shocking, I’ve been calling my running hobby, my second job. Short of family genes when it comes to sport, of training at altitude like the Kenyans, but not short of being… short, which might help when running hills but isn’t the best trait to go fast on roads, I’ve had to work hard to move up from the middle of the pack where I started in my first road races in France. I was barely training, swamped into the startup life, an amazing mix of excitement, passion and workaholism. I started running seriously upon moving to the Bay Area at the end of 1998. We were coming to spend 2 years in the US and I had set the goal of running a marathon, before our return to France. Then that turned to 27 marathons and 203 ultra races, and counting. Oops! Got addicted to the thrill of testing and pushing the envelope. I didn’t even know about Boston (the marathon) when I ran my first marathon in San Francisco. 3:30 after quite some… work already. Then San Jose in 3:25, albeit the additional work put into it. I was quite disappointed by the small increment but went on persevering. Working harder. Even starting speed work at the track (De Anza College) thanks to Don Murdoch’s motivating coaching. Will never forget, how that gave me the discipline to work harder and also be curious about running tips from the other members of the Stevens Creek Striders club. While I’ve been hard enough on myself not to need much additional help, I’m super grateful to that group which got me on the right (single) track. And foot. Plus the connection to Western States by becoming the aid station captain at Last Chance, for a few years. More fun. And more work too!

Fast forward 20 years and I need to work even harder to rebuild muscles and mind after two annoying injuries: a fissured tendon at the end of 2018 and torn meniscus in 2024, the latter leading to 7 months off running. Hard physically, and even harder mentally. To most watching, I’m back. Yes, mostly. But, and although not measured scientifically of course, my guess or estimate is that my shape is still 10% lower than where it could have been without these injuries. Speaking if science, maybe I should listen more to my Coros watch because it surely has A LOT to say, most notably that I rarely wait to fully recover between training days, and that some of these runs end up concluding in an Exhausted mode. Plus more than a dozen of metrics that I haven’t delved into. One is intriguing me the most since I resumed training a year ago, though: the predicted marathon time. In almost a year of, to continue on the theme of this post, rather hard word, I only shaved a few minutes off it and it’s now plateauing between 3:09 and 3:10. Not bad compared to the 3:45 Boston Qualifier time for my age group but 8 minutes off the law I had established in my early Masters years of running road marathons in 2 hours plus my age in minutes. Would now place me at 3:01… In optimal racing conditions that is. I’m thinking I should try again.

Writing this I reflect on the contrast there is between just working harder, versus with more discipline. And, yes, I tend to slide toward the former, just logging more miles and aiming at pushing the pace. I should do more cross-training, more speed work (scoop, Cupertino High School is refreshing their track of 20 years!) Meanwhile, it has been closed since June…), more strength training, more stretching. More…

Back to the title, how much labor did I put in this weekend? I had big plans, I wanted to at least do a 50-mile run to Fremont and back, like I did so many while (over)training for Spartathlon in 2023, with a couple of 200-mile weeks. On Saturday morning, we had a small backyard maintenance project, so it was already getting hot when I was ready to go, around 10:30. And rather late anyway for an 8 to 9-hour training run. I went on to run 25K along the Cupertino rail track, down to Campbell.

I was resolute to leave early on Sunday, to take advantage of a cool morning. Woke up at 5:30, got some breakfast and was ready to go by 7:15, loaded with a few GU Energy gels and chews, 8 S!Caps and my two Ultimate Direction bottles. But with a problem right off the bat: just before leaving, Agnès asking me “do you really need to do a 50-mile, why?” Ahh, the why which is questioning all that hard work and mining the mind and motivation. She was right, my next ultras will be in October and November so, why training hard now. Well, just because training for an ultra is a long game. Just because, you’d better do these long runs way ahead rather than showing up tired on race day (hence the tapering). But, again, it’s not science, or it is rocket science as a matter of fact. As we say in our ultra community, we are experiments of one.

The first mile was the toughest. First, nowadays with the additional years, and running almost every day, my body takes more time to get to a comfortable pace. On one end, it was 65F and it felt really nice for running, before the peak of 90F expected in the afternoon on the other side of the Bay. And I was happy with the minimal soreness after yesterday’s 15 miles. On the other, that “but why” resonating in my head… I settled in the next 10 miles for a pace of 8 minutes/mile, plus or minus 2 seconds. The streets were so quiet on this Sunday morning that I didn’t have to even stop my watch to cross De Anza boulevard, then Homestead or even Fremont. By mile 5.5 I was done with the street part of the course and on for 40 miles on the bike path to Fremont and back.

Because I didn’t have to stop my watch to cross the large arteries of Cupertino and Sunnyvale, I decided it was an opportunity to run to Fremont without any stop. I was on track until mile 10.5 when I got into this major trail closure at Shoreline. It’s unclear what they are working on except that they are moving mountains, literally. Between the creation of a new pond for wildlife, or expanding the marsh, they are also raising the levée along the sailing lake of Shoreline. There I was with my goal of not stopping my watch, I did press the button while find a forbidden way to go around... At least it was Sunday before Labor Day so there was no soul working on the pharaonic thing.

While running through the Palo Alto Baylands, I crossed path with good friends walking their dog. Another good stop to catch-up. And talk about the why again. At that point, it was around 9:30 am and the temperature had already risen significantly. I decided I was going to cut this training run short, to only 50K, by turning around at the defunct Palo Alto yacht club. I contemplated adding the loop around the airport but the why had killed me. Well, not just that, it was also getting harder to maintain the 8:00 pace. I refilled my bottles at the parking lot, at mile 16, and retraced my route back. With the heat, I lost quite some sodium --this royal blue enhance the trace of salt-- as well as a few pounds of (body) water. In the why registry, not sure I need heat training anymore for the rest of the season...

This Monday, aka Labor Day, I was flying to Italy in the afternoon, for a wedding there, plus a visit of the Vatican. I rounded up this training weekend with another 15.5 miles (25K) by running loops in the neighborhood. It felt a bit less laborious, but still quite some labor to finish with an average pace of 7:57. For a total of 100K over the 3 days, and a 91-mile week, for a big change. The left knee is a bit sensitive, just enough to remind me that I can’t log as much as I used to…

Finishing this post after a good 6-hour sleep on my flight to Rome, thanks to an upgrade in Business. During my Monday run, the street traffic was pretty much inexistant, the neighborhood looked dead, except for some an interesting distraction: with so many people out of town, the Cupertino Fire brigade was dispatched to test all the fire hydrants. I stopped at one to thank one of the firefighters and teased him that this was work, on a Labor Day! He replied that, since there were on duty anyway, they may do something useful! At least I wasn't the only one working on our streets on Labor Day!

And you, did you work this Monday? At work or on your running?

Memorial Training Weekend trilogy: part 3, to the Baylands

35 hilly miles on Saturday, 31 miles to Lexington Reservoir on Sunday, I just had to run 34 miles on Memorial Day, Monday. For that I picked the easiest option, running from home to the Palo Alto Baylands and around the Palo Alto golf and airport. Such a familiar course that I didn't take any picture for a change.

The whole purpose of these training weekends is to run on tired legs, spend hours on your feet and, for me on the mental preparation side, run the distance of the next upcoming 100-mile race which will be Cool Moon this year.

This third run crossed one of the most recent Mid Pen parks, thanks to an arrangement with POST (Peninsula Open Space Trust), a non-profit which I love and support, acting as a buffer between the high value of land in the Bay Area and the need to preserve natural habitat for future generations.

Mid Pen just released a wonderful guide of its 25 parks, available on paper at its headquarters in Los Altos, or in pdf format downloadable here.

During this trilogy, I now realize I visited 4 of these parks (at the top of the list below), plus 6 others at recent races and training runs these past weeks:

• Fremont Older Open Space Preserve (OSP)
• Montebello OSP
• St. Joseph's Hill OSP
• Stevens Creek Shoreline Nature Area OSP
• Skyline Ridge OSP
• Picchetti Ranch OSP
• Rancho San Antonio OSP
• Ravenswood OSP
• Russian Ridge OSP
• Sierra Azul OSP

Plus other local parks, mostly County-managed:

• Upper Stevens Creek
• Almaden Quicksilver
• Lexington Reservoir
• Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve
• Don Edwards (National) Wildlife Preserve
• Rancho San Antonio
• McClellan Ranch Preserve

Mere competition with my friend Chuck Wilson who has been averaging 2 different parks a day since the beginning of the year, yet a list which attests how blessed we are with the number of easily accessible parks all around us in the Bay Area and the Midpeninsula in particular.

These 100 miles haven't been easy, averaging a 8:40 min/mile pace, NOT counting numerous breaks, but I'm glad I reached my initial lofty goal on the road of rebuilding both physically and mentally. And, depleting my body with low carb input, I retrained and rewired key basics for racing, including lowering my weight to what used to be my optimal, a few years ago. Collecting these wraps to send to Terracycle through the GU Energy recycling program.

With that, and following with another 100-mile week, as I write this post a week later, it's time to enjoy some tapering since Coros has been yelling my running was excessive for the past 2 weeks now... Granted, out of 10 ultra runs so far this year, 6 in May! While it feels good to ramp back up I still need to find the right balance not to break again... As we say in ultra running, we are all an experiment of n=1 so good luck to you too!

Memorial Weekend Training trilogy: part 2, back to the Dammit memory lane!

After the hilly 35 miles on day 1, my plan was to log 16 easy flat miles along the rail track this Sunday then run my 50-mile route to Fremont on Monday. So I left home with only a pack of GU Chews and one bottle of GU Brew (aka GU2O). Although I typically take 1 S!Caps at the turn around on Winchester, but I even forgot to take any with me this time. I mention this because, 4 miles into my run, I started thinking I'd rather go longer to avoid having to spend 7 or 8 hours on my run on Monday. Maybe 20 miles? Or maybe even longer for another ultra training run?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about continuing onto Winchester, taking left, along the track. Not a great trail with lose rocks. This time I took right for 2 blocks, then left on Lark Avenue and there was the Los Gatos Creek Trail to score a few miles. I very rarely see any soul on the 6-mile segment along the track since it isn't an official trail, except for a couple of short sections within Saratoga. The contrast with the busy Los Gatos Creek Trail was quite a shock: walkers, runners, cyclists, you have to remain on your toes, literally! With so many humans, at least you get a few convenient drinking fountains at least.

Running that trail brought back many memories, including a San Jose marathon edition (maybe 1999 or 2000, I wasn't blogging back then, and the svmarathon.com website domain has disappeared in 2021; illustrating that even in our data intensive age, records aren't safe for ever; thankfully, the Internet/Web Archive, WayBack Machine, is still up; yet, I could access the 1999 results, but not the 2000 ones; nor could I retrieve the course map which was what I was looking for).

Anyway, after a few more miles, I got onto the final miles of Los Gatos Creek Trail and up the infamous Lexington Reservoir Dam: the terrain of the Dammit Run tradition which ran for several decades before being killed by the pandemic. A 5-mile loop from the Los Gatos High School track, mostly on trails and including some serious climbs. Short of blogging back then, and the loggatosdammitrun.com website being dead too, I still have my log to refresh my memory. According to this blog post, 2019 was the 47th and last edition.

Again, I wouldn't have remembered without the help of that log, I ran 4 editions:

• 2003: 30'17" (6:06 min/mile)
• 2004: 30'24" (6:07)
• 2005: 29'24" (5:55)
• 2006: 30'59" (6:14)

I have to say that, especially after struggling to slog the steep mile to climb over the Lexington Reservoir's dam, then the killer St. Joseph's hill this Sunday, I'm quite impressed with these times and pace averages. Time flies and speed is all relative, literally.

I retraced my way on Los Gatos Creek Trail except for a detour to pick some Gatorade and a Snickers bar since I hadn't properly planned for this long run. By some incredible serendipity again, in reference to that above April post for instance, Stevens Creek Striders club mate, Peter Hargreaves, spotted me while driving through Los Gatos. He couldn't stop so we just exchanged a quick sign but amazed at the odds.

Here is a Relive.cc flyover with pictures and video clips of the Wildcat mini train at Vasona Lake:

6 days later, as I write this post, I'm back from a repeat, this time with some serious heat training with temperatures topping 93F. While I didn't die --phew!-- I have to admit the heat made it much more difficult. Not pressed by time, I actually stopped for 2 hours overall, including 30 minutes to cool down in the Los Gatos Creek Trail at mile 15, at the end of that Dammit loop. Quite some current in the creek and soaking my feet for 20 minutes felt so good. A luxury not available while racing...

At mile 24, I even stopped at the Seven Springs Fire Station to ask for some ice. And I got plenty! With all the stops at water fountains and bathrooms to cool down, it was already 6 pm so the shade was also helping. Overall, I didn't push to the whole 50K, only 29 miles this time.

Memorial Training Weekend trilogy: part 1, saving Private Waterwheel

Most of the people familiar with the legendary 100-mile Western States Endurance Run would have heard about the Memorial Training tradition which has been running for several decades. For me, my first edition was a few weeks before my first Western States run in 2007. I was so excited that, on the first day, I ran from Robinson Flat to Forest Hill, per the group plan, but continued on down to the river in Rucky Chucky, for 47 miles in one go. And a good lesson, a good bonk and late return to Forest Hill... After that, I stuck with the plan for day 2 and 3, totaling 88 miles for the weekend (that was my first year blogging). 

After that, I made a tradition to run very long that 3-day weekend, albeit without the travel and logistics of driving and staying at Forest Hill. Thus saving more time to work on my first job...

• 2008 was crazy with 126 super hilly miles (Quicksilver 50-mile course, Ohlone and PG&E repeats at Rancho San Antonio), even practicing getting paced by Max in preparation to my second Western States run, only for that edition being canceled due to major wildfires.
• In 2009 I named the weekend: BAWSMDWETC (Bay Area Wester States Memorial Day WeekEnd Training Camp). 122 hilly miles as well (Mission Peak x6, Quicksilver 50-mile course, PG&E x4).
• In 2010, before my 3rd and last Western States, I scaled down with only 2 days and 49 hilly miles (Mission Peak and PG&E repeats).
• 2011 was completely different with a focus on speed work before the World Masters in Sacramento (8th overall in the 10K but 2 age group medals on the marathon, individual bronze and leading Team USA for a team gold).
• 2014 had only 87 miles, hilly ones on the first day (Black Mountain), then flat ones.
• In 2016, 90 miles over three days and some good heat training before Tahoe Rim Trail 100 (my biggest failed event with 3 DNFs total...).
• In 2017, 80 miles although I was mostly focused on recovery.

I skipped the past years due to two major injuries (2018 and 2024) but I'm not seriously rebuilding, at least as much as my torn meniscus allows, with a big goal mid June, Cool Moon 100. As I shared the past few weeks, I like to run the race distance over either 2 or 3 days so that was the goal this year.

On Saturday, I ran to the top of Black Mountain via the classic route I shared on several older posts, Montebello Road. For the interest of time, I'll just list the trails I then went on, to come back to the title of this post. After a first passage at the summit --I know, that's only 2,800 feet...-- I went down Bella Vista then up again on Indian Creek, down on Bella Vista then down Canyon trail all the way down Stevens Creek Canyon road. Then up on Lookout, Coyote Ridge, down to the Seven Springs Loop in Fremont Older, then home, along the rail tracks from Prospect to McClellan. A cute anecdote: at the bottom of Seven Springs 2 rangers were trying to catch speeding up bikes with a radar. They got me at 14 mph, duh! And I was 29 miles in a 35-mile run! We had a good laugh and chat.

So, back to the title: at the top of Montebello Road, I veered left on Water Wheel trail, one of my favorite, very rarely seeing anyone there as it takes a permit to park on the small lot. Favorite because, especially in hot days, there is a very refreshing spring which typically still runs late in the summer. Well... to my dismay, a tree fell on the frail plumbing installation which I've known for more than 10 years. I'm going to have to check with my friend and Mid Pen volunteer, Chuck Wilson, who I can contact to see if that can be repaired. Being one of the very few users, I'm ready to give a hand...

Overall, a great day with many stops along the way to simply enjoy life. While working hard as Coros can testify. In this fly over, I even included a few clips while running on Canyon trail, to better illustrate the speed. But I agree, holding the camera in one hand while taking care of 2 bottles in the other, and no stabilizer, sucks. You've been warned! ;-) Video also includes a survey of the Water Wheel spring carnage, a new house up on Montebello with quite a view, healthy creeks and more views.

A great day to be out there with so many creeks still flowing strong, and a few flowers enjoying the cooler weather, still. May miss the heat training for Cool Moon but at least I feel better with some hill work. More for day 2 and 3, next!

PS: more pictures. First, still not a trail but makes the climb of the (Stevens Creek Reservoir) dam much easier, almost a carpet!

The reservoir still almost full, with still a good inflow of water from the Stevens Creek and feeding creeks.

That brand new house up high on Montebello, with quite a view!

The fallen tree, recently uprooted from what I can tell.

Above the Pacific fog.

Black Mountain #2

Top of Lookout.

Seven Springs loop, above Cupertino.