Last and 35th ultra of the year: on familiar grounds!

After the 4 years it took my hamstring injury to heal, 2023 has been a much better year, finally! There is still so many muscle fibers to rebuild, quite a hefty challenge with age, in order to regain pre-injury speed but at least the pain is gone. A good setting to get back to higher mileage although I had made a resolution not to reach again the 3,100-miles/5,000-kilometers levels I had reached for the 8 years leading to that injury (when I slipped in full stride extension on a wet crosswalk at the 2018 Turkey Trot 10K). But... I dared to put my name in the Spartathlon lottery and got picked on my first run and that required a very special preparation, including higher mileage, oops! Long story short, I ended up logging 4,001 miles in 2023!

4,000 miles never seemed to be a reasonable goal to me and, sure enough, I'm finishing the year quite exhausted. But if you think that's an impossible goal, know that others put even more miles in! For instance, the fastest woman on the ultra scene today, Camille Herron, just closed her 12th year above 5,000 miles, with 4 more years above 4,000 miles before that when she was still focusing on the marathon distance. And she isn't slowing down in her earlier Masters years! In contrast, Kilian Jornet has quite a different philosophy has he is mixing with more activities, exemplifying the power of cross-training: while his running mileage seems low at 3,200 kilometers (2,000 miles), he boasts mind boggling numbers in other dimensions such as 584,270 meters of vertical (yes, that's almost 2 million feet)! Lot of food and scattered data points for thoughts on what best to do in 2024...

The day before Christmas was open and I decided to go for one last ultra to close on that elusive 4K-mile goal. We had a project to fly to Africa for the holidays but had to reschedule for next year, ended up at home. And with home goes the familiar ground. While this isn't making up the carbon footprint of my air travels, I don't like to take the car to drive somewhere to run long, I much prefer running from home. I have a few familiar long run courses from home:

1. For a marathon distance: the entrance of the Palo Alto Baylands park at the end of San Antonio Road, in Mountain View.
2. For 50K, continue on through Byxbee Bridge Park, to the ex/historical/defuncted Palo Alto Yacht Club.
3. For 50 miles, keep going along the Palo Alto airport on the Bay Trail, across the Dumbarton Bridge and turning back at the Pump House of the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge.
4. Alternatively, for some vertical, up to Black Mountain on Montebello Road with variations ranging from 22 to 28 miles, or more with additional loops on Bellavista and Indian Creek Trails.

This Saturday, to build on the familiar and family theme, Greg joined me to run the first 11 miles together.

We also ran into Agnès and Max at Shoreline who hiked there before stopping by the Google visitor center for a short visit.

Every time I run through Shoreline, I wonder if I'm going to see Jean-François (Maitrot) training there and, sure enough, we crossed him just after seeing Agnès and Max. Jean-François was on his way toward Microsoft but changed his plan to join me for the next 2 miles. Which, after a leisurely 8:20 min/mil average pace turned into a 7:20 min/mile tempo, all while chatting to catch-up about our respective racing, training tips, shoe trends, and the way too typical running topic, injuries. Jean-François is on a great quest of famous marathons: after qualifying and running Boston, he has run Amsterdam, ran Berlin after being picked in the lottery and is going to run Tokyo next! 13 marathons out of a goal of 26. Or maybe 42 after all, crazy runner moving goals... ;-)

After Jean-François turned back before the Bowl, I continued to my own turnaround and returned toward Cupertino. A few pictures and one Relive flyover (click on first picture below):

Back to my starting point, with now 3,998 year mile, I kept going with one of my local, and very familiar, 5K look around the neighborhood, to round up and close the year with 4,001 miles. With only one week left in the year, not really in time to indulge the 3 rest weeks recommended by Scott Jurek, an advice I followed for many years but at least I'm taking the last day of 2023 off, phew!

In this other Facebook post, Kilian shares how he switches his training to skiing and indoor cycling in winter and how that makes him a better runner. I don't have snowy mountains nearby but I already had in mind to at least integrate much needed strength training, fo a big change. I'm at least very happy to close the year healthy, it's easy to take good health for granted...

Sending peaceful vibes to all over these year end holidays, thinking of the many drawn into conflicts around the world. To a better and smarter 2024 hopefully!