My friend L and I decided to run together next Sunday on his
home trail, for about 10 miles. He was preparing for another
100-mile race and this was one of his training routes. I, on
the other hand, had run mostly on flat paved surfaces. The
last and only time I ran on a trail was three years ago.
"You'll do fine." he reassured.
I was not so sure, however. On paper at least, the trail
seemed no less challenging than Mission Peak and I didn't
want to look too bad. Saturday afternoon, I went to the Peak
Trail starting from Ohlone College to find out how it feels
to run up and down a hill.
It began with a steep slope and I had to do 3io (three steps
for one inhale and three steps for one exhale) from the
get-go. That was my sprinting pace during high intensity
interval trainning! At the end of the second sharp incline,
I could do only 2io and baby-steps, and eventually had to
walk for a couple of minutes. To my surprise, I'd recover
soon and found the energy to go again.
After repeating the cycle half a dozen times, I reached the
end of the trail (I didn't scale the last leg to the pole).
It took me about 55 min.
Downhill, the lungs were spared and I felt comfortable. The
slopes challenged my abs, quads and hamstrings. Thanks to
regular strength training, however, I could descend in a
controlled manner. I couldn't take big strides anyway: it
would have been too painful with my Xero huaraches.
At the car, my quads felt a little sore, which hadn't
happened for a while, and the bottom of my feet on fire,
which meant that I could have handled the downhill better.
I did some house chores. No problem. I slept well and the
next morning did yoga as usual. Plantar fasciitis was no
more painful than after an HIIT run. Heart rate went up to 56 and I took the day off.
Overall, this was a good experience. I think I can handle
next Sunday's meetup.
