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Three Parts: Bloody happy? It was my birthday! Back to the birth zone.

Bloody happy?

When I was growing up I liked to play hard. I enjoyed riding my dirt bike on trails, trudging around through the woods, climbing trees, playing tackle games with the neighbor kids. Sometimes I would do silly things but rarely did I get too injured. Mostly I would just get scrapes.

I remember my mom saying, “I knew he had a good time if he came home bloody”. Yup, I had a lot of skinned elbows and knees. Here’s a new one from Saturday. Yes mom, I had a good time.

It was my birthday!

And for my birthday my running group celebrates with me with a run up North Chalone Peak at The Pinnacles National Park near Soledad.

The first time we did it was the year I turned 50. We’ve now, including this year, done it four times. Good times. This was the first time it wasn’t butt freezing cold at the top.

6 months ago running this wasn’t even on my radar. I wasn’t running due to my back issues. But gradually I was able to increase my mileage. My core grew stronger and so did my confidence. In January I started thinking it might be possible. And then, we did it. The 14 miles were the longest run I’ve done since August. And the 3,800’ of elevation is just a lot.

Here’s the map

And the elevation

and hopefully a video’ish slideshow of the day. Note - I try to not include recognizable photos of people… Also, I’m experimenting with adding a series of photos as a video - just to keep it simple. I may revert back to a bunch of photos later. We’ll see.

Back to the birth zone

I was down in the dumps Friday. It was the last weekend of break. Almost Easter. No plans. Some invitations I’d sent out were declined. Memories of fabulous Easters in the Carmel Highlands were eating at my brain. I lamented to my friend Kc and she said, “go visit some animals at a shelter” and I thought, “Well, yeah. I need to replenish my soul.” At the end of the Saturday run a little black cat was resting in the sun on the sidewalk. I pet the furry beast and thought, yeah, this is nice but not totally what I need for my soul.

Sometimes I forget how free I am now. I can just get in the car and go. Saturday night I realized I could just go to Montana de Oro and run trails there. So I did.

It was fabulous. 2.5 hour drive south. The hills are lush and green. 3 hours on the trails. 2.5 hour drive north with rain showers. No shenanigans. Just a beautiful day. Flowers. Butterflies (blue, green, checkered, swallowtails). Big hills and big views. This was the first time in a while I felt like Katie was there watching me as I trucked around. Mostly it was when a little blue butterfly decided to fly along with me for a couple hundred yards. They’re fun little fellas.

The map. I went up Valencia Peak and then up Oat Peak. The blue lines show where it was steepest. The red and orange were downhill on the way back. 10 miles and about 2000’

The elevation

The images