Running networking

This is typical of Silicon Valley... Saturday morning, you put your (Brooks) shoes on, go for a run, meet someone new, talk for several hours about running, life, work, kids, etc. "What's your name? - Brent. - Nice to meet you, I'm Jean." And here we are, Sunday evening, writing a short post to find out that Brent is a key executive at PayPal and was previously with eBay where he led the acquisition of PayPal a few years ago. Simply.

This Saturday, Agnès and Alex left early for the airport. The scoop: Alex has been selected in this year's Congressional Page program and will spend almost 5 months on Capitol Hill. His first experience there, and he just turned 16... How cool is that to start the program the week of the President's address to the whole Congress for the State of the Union? 60 kids for the whole country, a 200-year old program, a school dedicated to the group, 4.5 months with our representatives, what a unique experience it is going to be for Alex and his "page-mates", all that right after our trip to Ethiopia (yet another of Alex's projects...)!

Anyway, this Saturday I was up for a solo run up to Black Mountain, hoping to see some snow up there. It snowed on the hills of the East Bay two days ago and not just on Mount Hamilton. Even Mission Peak was snow capped and such views always thrilled me and make me wish we could go to ski every weekend.

I left home at 8:05, just in time to attend the Stevens Creek Striders weekly meeting at the lower parking lot of Stevens Creek Park. A dozen members welcomed 3 guests, one of whom admitted that he has lived in the reservoir area for a while without knowing the existence of our club. Brent is new to ultra running, but not ultra endurance, having completed several ironman events at the elite level. He ran 20 marathons (just like me!) and is going to run his first ultra with PCTR in two weeks. The Woodside 50K, the same day as Jed Smith 50K.

He had biked but never ran to the top of Black Mountain and was up for a 3:15 run so we left the rest of the group in the climb to the dam and got on Montebello Road, chatting all the way.

The weather alternated between cloudy, rainy, sunny and drizzly. But overall not cold enough for snow. To my disappointment, Black Mountain was still black this Saturday morning.

We came down to the reservoir following the flooding Stevens Creek Canyon and get our feet wet when crossing the creek actually. A good training in preparation of Way Too Cool, which we both got in by the way.

Brent did tell me he was working for PayPal but didn't say at which position. He did share that he was just back from being expatriate in Ireland and Luxembourg but not that he was then the General Manager and VP Europe of PayPal. As for being new to ultra, we ran 27 miles today, so he is definitely ready for his first 50K! You can expect to see him placing quickly! Brent, good luck in two weeks, and I hope you decide to join the Striders and also our RhoQuick ultra running team actually (please contact me to discuss)!

We did split at Mount Eden Road, close to Brent's house, and I ran back along the reservoir on the REI trail (officially closed because of several mud slides). Here is a picture of the reservoir showing that we need much more water this winter (the level is pretty low if you compare to the overflow wall on the right).

I stopped by the Park Rangers station to check for any train maintenance opportunity, then stopped by the office of the Audubon Society at McClellan Ranch (hoping to meet Debi Jamison, Steve Patt's wife, who volunteers there and left a note on my July post on the Blackberry Farm grand opening). Half a mile farther, I took two pictures of the e-waste drop-off event going on at Monta Vista High School (great sustainable and green initiative!).

 

Nice social and casual ultra marathon, some good training for the beginning of the season after the 18 miles of the week (much better than the past two weeks), followed by 7 miles this Sunday. It feels good to get back on the trails, getting excited again with all the upcoming races we have planned with the team for 2010!

Back to town for Santa Cruz Bad Ass

Still feeling behind with blogging, work, family, friends, pictures, social networking and running actually but slowly catching up. I've drafted a "post mortem" post on the Ethiopian trip but am still working on the selection of pictures to go with the text. Another busy week in perspective at work so here is a short post to recount the Santa Cruz Bad Ass run organized by Adam Blum yesterday. My second fat ass of the month. One ultra every Saturday but no running in between, not the best training regimen...
I almost missed the invitation on FaceBook after so many weeks away from the Internet civilization. Checked on my account on Friday night and also got an email from Pierre-Yves who wanted to borrow my copy of Born to Run. I was going to join our Saturday morning group at Rhus Ridge this Saturday but switched to Adam's run so we could catchup and discuss the upcoming season with our RhoQuick team.
5 of us started the run this morning: Adam, Pierre-Yves, Gary, Andy and I. The meteo was supposed to be bad for the whole weekend but this Saturday morning was actually looking good. A few clouds, cool temperatures but some sun. Everybody was in great shape after running the Saratoga Fat Ass of last week and we started on a fast pace going down the steep Hutchinson Road. Adam had told Holly that we should reach Santa Cruz in around 3 hours and 15 minutes. He added that the Bad Ass Café after which this run is named is actually closed so we were to meet at Lulu's, at the entrance of Pacifica.
Last year I was slightly injured and decided to drop at Felton, about half-way between Adam's and Santa Cruz. This year, I was excited to go for the whole course, that is the round-trip including the climb up Hutchinson Road to get back to Adam's.
Adam maintained a strong pace and was determined to PR today. He was astonished when we reached Lulu's 2 hours and 15 minutes after leaving Rudy Road, and 2:06 of effective running time. We took a 15-minute break, a latte for some, a bagel for others, a cookie for me, and swiftly hit the road again to avoid getting cold (my specialty or limitation...). Gary actually dropped at Lulu's, as originally planned, and ended up running a 2-mile at the Los Gatos All-Comers meet later that afternoon. Andy and Pierre-Yves led the way as I was feeling the lack of training and fatigue from my African adventure. Adam was behind and asked not to wait for him.
We kept a reasonable pace all the way except for some walking in the last steep uphills, mostly because I was tired, slowing down Pierre-Yves and Andy. We reached Adam's house after 4:53 of elapsed time (excluding our stop at Lulu's) and Adam actually arrived shortly, just a few minutes after us, in great shape and super excited to have almost caught up with us. And to have set a new PR, eventually!
For me this run showed that I have a lot of work to put back in training after this long winter break. As for the others, the team seem ready to kick ass again this year! Fat ass, bad ass, fast ass, you name it, we are ready for the fun! Should be a great 2010.

Run Happy all!

PS: a few (50!) additional pictures in my Picasa album. And in Gary Gellin's one too.

My favorite picture is this one, where Andy, in the background, seems to have jumped over the fence without even touched it. What a horse! ;-)
We saw a train (the driver was not happy to see us sharing "his" track...):