Hard run today, attempting the Black Mountain Summit Run I'd been wanting to do for a little while now. I headed out at 7:30AM, and was still feeling the effects of last night's run. My calves and ankles are tender and all this week I have taken a little longer than usual to "warm up." The first 3.5 miles were okay: I started out very slowly, getting comfortable; but after cresting the saddle gap near Black Mtn park at around 2 miles I saw that I was cruising and had to rein myself in a little. I was at the 3 mile point at 25 minutes, which was too fast for this run, what with the climbs coming up.
I turned onto Stargazer, and oh boy! It felt like it was straight up. I wasn't trying to bound up or anything, but anything faster than a walk was a quad burner. I had to relent about a block short of the top and I walked to Laurentian. I started a jog again to the trailhead and continued until turning off Laurentian to head toward Hilltop Park. A too-steep downhill gave away a bunch of elevation and was too dangerous to run so I walked it (about 200m). I left the trail at Rasmussen and started a jog again. Back uphill on Oviedo and right onto another short steep on McEntree to Hilltop Park.
Out of breath and drooling, I took a pit stop at the water fountain. Walked the perimeter, contemplating the rest of the climb, which would be all trail running. I followed a group of hikers from the start of the Nighthawk trailhead, not anxious to begin running on the loose rock and rutted path. After about 200m, I finally got myself going and ran delicately, watching for ankle-turning hazards. The trail was plain, a little moist and muddy, offering several grade changes. The steeper and looser sections I'd walk, treating the route up kind of like an intervals session. Nighthawk rejoins the Laurentian road bed a couple of bends below the summit, and I made the rest of the climb in 3 interval sections. About 1:05:00 had elapsed since I left home, 6.2 slant miles done. Long time to cover a little over 10K, but the hills were dominating me.
I rested for a few minutes at the top before walking back down the trail back to Nighthawk. I chose the northward path to the Miner's Loop trail for the route back down the mountain, and ran this comfortably where it wasn't too dangerous, descending down to Bernardo Center Rd and then surface streets back home. Used a walk/run strategy over the final mile to cooldown and start recovery. Total time spent was 1:50 and about 10 miles.
A very different sort of run for me. It wasn't a long slow distance, but it was a good introduction to the sort of hill training I need to start doing. I chalked it up as a "hard day" and will need to get on my marathon training rotation with a rest day/crosstrain day on Monday. Both ankles are sore. I hope that won't be a recurring problem.
