Exploring

Inspired by the stories told by Dean Karnazes, I took an hour off from digging through the mounds of receipts, bills and paperwork for tax preparation to explore off road for a passage through or around some chaparral to verify that I'll be able to run a complete circuit of Lake Hodges when the time comes.  I'm still a few weeks away from that 18+ mile attempt, but I wasn't certain until today whether or not I could find a way from the Camino del Norte side of the river to the Del Dios Hwy footbridge.

I'd scouted the route using MapMyRun, GoogleEarth and Bing maps, but I just wasn't positive it was passable.  Turns out it is, although I have to hop some rocks to get across a stream and then pretend not to see a No Trespassing sign near the boundary of the swanky Crosby Estates. 

Once leaving paved road, the trail is very rocky, rutted and hilly, although it's incredibly peaceful and pretty.  I had a cool day to do it on.  I'd probably not like it on a hot day, and a wet day would be miserable unless I choose to trash a pair of shoes.  Even today, with several days since the last rain, it's still quite soggy in the hollow where the stream crossing is.

I was hovered over by a helicopter for a few moments on the way back.  I'm pretty sure it was a police helicopter checking me out.  I guess it was obvious I was a jogger and not up to any mischief because it left and I didn't see it again.  I'm going to run through this section one time on the Lake Hodges trip so I should only be trespassing for about 15 minutes, which I think would be too short to get hassled.

I kept a very slow pace, partly governed by the hills and the rocks and partly because I stopped at a few places to take in the view and get my bearings.  But I also concentrated on keeping a slow easy training pace since today's run was supposed to be non-taxing.  And except for some stress on the hills, I kept it comfortable.




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