My Southern California Trail Running

My Death March

It seems that every year for the past 3 years, there has been a run involving Joplin Trail that gets the dubious title of "death march" or something like that.  Usually it involves a lot of heat.  Our Sunday long run was no exception.  We started at 5:30AM to beat some of the heat but as you can see, the sun was already coming up.

I planned out a "special course" that was just in side the closed fire burn area.  According to the US Forest Service, Joplin Trail is open.  So the plan was to start at the end of Trabuco Creek Road, go up Holy Jim Trail to Santiago Peak, then down the other side to Joplin, down Joplin, briefly on Santiago Trail then cut down on an unnamed/unmarked trail back onto Trabuco Creek Road and back to our cars.

Word came that it was going to be HOT.  Nickie and I went and dropped water at mile 5.  We also dropped some water within about the last mile of running.  With my calculations I'd have about 20 ounces for the first 5 miles, then 90 for the next 15 and refill for the last mile.  I assumed I'd run out and be without for about a mile if it was hot.  But things got slow...

 

This tip up to Holy Jim was great and even climbing Holy Jim went very well for us.  At the top we started experiencing the miserable swarms of gnats and flies that would plague us for most of the rest of our run.  We met a guy named Mike at the top of Holy Jim.  He was training for the Leadville 100 and we ran/hiked with him to Santiago Peak which was his turn around point.

Above is a view from Holy Jim Trail.  It was a beautiful and clear day.

Enjoying the top.  We were feeling it by now and ready for some downhill.  I started waning a bit on the trip up to Santiago from the top of Holy Jim.  I had to take a few stop breaks.  The four of us rested for a bit at the top then we parted ways with Mike.  The downhill on Main Divide felt great.  There was no sign of any burn area on this side of Modjeska Peak (in the saddle) or on Modjeska peak which is good.  It wasn't long before we got to Joplin Trail.

Here we are just before going down Joplin.  The trail has always been miserable coming up.  Easily one of the most technical trails in Orange County.  It sure was a good test for my shoes!  We started down and soon experienced abundant over growth.

Has anyone seen my trail?  Going down Joplin was SLOW.  We hiked much of it.  We were feeling the heat.  We had about 6 miles of downhill to go but this section might as well have been up.  It was rocky, steep, slippery, overgrown and slightly hellish to descend.  It took us a while to get to Old Camp.  After that we slowly made our way to Santiago Truck Trail after some water splashing in the cold stream.  We were pretty much all out of water now with 4 miles to go.  If it hadn't been so blasted hot we'd have done much better.  We walked we ran we melted.  The heat blasted us like a furnace going down.  We found our branch off Santiago and I was looking forward to coasting down some fireroad.  This road was nearly as steep as Joplin!  We walk, ran, and roller skated down this fire road (and some of us fell a few times).  It was rough in the raging heat.  With about 2.5 miles to go we ran into some guys on the trail in their pickup truck and I asked them for water which they had.  A total life saver.  Normally I wouldn't stop to talk to two guys in jeans with their underwear hanging out and no shirts - throwing crap over the mountainside, but hey sometimes you gotta do it (queue hillbilly music).  They filled us all up about 20oz each.  Mine was gone within the next half mile.  We were very thankful for that sweet nectar.  I had drank 130oz of water by now and it was still not enough.

We got down to Trabuco Creek Road and were looking for a ride to hitch back to our cars.  We found one eventually and it was heaven!!  We picked up the water toward the end and used about half of that when we got back to our cars.  Despite the miserable heat I don't feel like I ever got heat exhaustion or was close.  I was just pretty tired toward those final miles.  The last 6 downhill miles took a toll on our finishing time which ended up being a little over 7 hours for almost 22 miles.  The temp when we got back to our cars read 102 degrees.  Our total elevation gain was 5,600 feet.

The Salomon XT Wings held up great and I was very impressed.  I had nearly 7.5 hours on my feet in them and took them on some pretty gnarly trails.  They felt well cushioned, light, stable and pretty much everything you'd want on a run like this.  I had no hot spots, no blisters, no foot pain or aches, etc.

The Nokia N82 left me a bit disappointed on this run.  Although it took amazing photos (all photos in this post are from the phone) and great video, it crashed on me twice.  Around mile 6 it seemed to crash for no reason and my phone rebooted.  At Santiago Peak I tried to send a picture to my blog and my phone completely locked up and I had to pull the battery out.  When it locked it also sucked my battery from 3/4 to 1/4 left in about 30 seconds.  The phone also died in 6 hours total time, partially due to this power drain on the peak.  I hope they offer a feature in the future that if it crashes you can continue the workout where you left off, instead of having multiple dis-jointed workouts.  Another great feature (that I love on my Suunto) would be to show total cumulative ascent and descent while you are running.  I'm still holding out my full rating on this phone.  I really have liked it so far but crashing during my run put a damper on my opinion for now. Stay tuned!

Despite the heat and bugs and crashing it was a mostly very enjoyable run.

Happy Running & Dirty Feet,
Jessica

My New Member Run

We had 10 people come out for a great time in Aliso & Wood Canyons this morning.  7 runners were new to the group and several had never been on trails before.  I think they are hooked :)  I'm resting up for tomorrow's big run and big test of the Salomon XT Wings.  That last picture (from my test post) wasn't taken from my cell phone but was posted with it.  Here are a couple taken from my phone this morning at our OCTR run.

Here's the Nokia Sports Tracker log of our run

Happy Running & Dirty Feet,
Jessica

My First Thoughts

I've been using the Nokia N82 for a couple days now and I have some initial thoughts.  I'm going to give the GPS & SportsTracker a big workout this weekend so I'll write more about that Monday as well as more in regards to the camera and video this phone is capable of.

Lately I've been a big fan for LG phones and have found them very reliable, easy to use and with simple menus and uncomplicated buttons.  I'm pretty technical, but honestly when I first starting using the Nokia N82 I wasn't sure how things worked.  Normally I can figure out a new phone fairly fast but it took me a couple days with the N82.  Part of that is due to the overwhelming features of this phone.  For instance, when you are taking a picture you can't just click the button like on most phone and be done with it.  Instead you hold the button part way down so it can focus then push.  It works much more like my actual camera and I guess I didn't expect that.

I couldn't get my text messaging working at first but that was more due to T-Mobile than anything else because you can't get the N82 in USA yet if you are with T-Mobile.  When I went to set it up they had never seen one before but did compliment on it being a great phone and hearing good things about it.

The phone is not really "pretty" but it is lightweight.  My LG phone is smaller but heavier.  Hopefully that doesn't mean the N82 will break easy because I have been known to drop a phone here and there :)

The screen is large and clear with excellent quality.  It auto-rotates with is a nice feature and something I loved with the iPhone came out.

The GPS locks fast.  There is a data transfer cable to quickly and easily transfer photos and videos to and from your PC or Mac.  It comes with Nokia Maps but I downloaded Google Maps since Nokia Maps currently doesn't have a satellite or traffic view.  It comes with some handy little apps like Adobe PDF reader, a program to unzip files, real player, flash, & IM.  The web browser is great and works fast.

The messaging features of the phone are excellent.  In addition to text/picture/video, you can set up your email.  I'm not talking about web mail, but rather integrating your gmail or a pop mail account into the phone.  When you do this email functions seamlessly into the messaging features and you get instant notifications and quick access to your email just like you would on a blackberry.  This also comes with attachment support so if you email me a word doc I can open it on my phone.

Personally, I never tested the iPhone but I played with it a little bit and the N82 is at the least a worth competitor.  Probably when you throw in the 5MP camera, 30fps video and GPS it kicks the iPhones ass.  I definitely enjoy this phone so far.  I play to play more with the sportstracker/GPS and the photo/video features this weekend on my runs.  The GPS and phone battery life will get a workout when I run 21 miles on Sunday.

I did use the GPS & SportsTracker last night.  Nickie and I went for a couple mile run on the beach.  Only problem is that the tide was high which meant not really any room to run in the sand and we were pushed up next to the rocks, shrubs, etc that were SWARMING with bugs.  We didn't do much running but the SportsTracker worked great.  I just need to get it out for a better test!

Happy Running & Dirty Feet,
Jessica

test post

Via my nokia N82

Landmark Ruling

I realize there are people on both side of the fence on the issue of marriage and who it should be available to.  In mind mind marriage comes in two parts - legal and religious.  Religious marriage can be limited or restricted all it wants to but I feel it's unfair to restrict legal/civil marriage to only between a man and woman.  Today the California Supreme Court ruled that they felt the same way.  And that equal protection and constitutional rights show that marriage should be available to all.  Some text from their ruling:

"In the present case, it is readily apparent that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples clearly is more consistent with the probable legislative intent than withholding that designation from both opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples in favor of some other, uniform designation. In view of the lengthy history of the use of the term “marriage” to describe the family relationship here at issue, and the importance that both the supporters of the 1977 amendment to the marriage statutes and the electors who voted in favor of Proposition 22 unquestionably attached to the designation of marriage, there can be no doubt that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples, rather than denying it to all couples, is the equal protection remedy that is most consistent with our state’s general legislative policy and preference.

Accordingly, in light of the conclusions we reach concerning the constitutional questions brought to us for resolution, we determine that the language of section 300 limiting the designation of marriage to a union “between a man and a woman” is unconstitutional and must be stricken from the statute, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available both to opposite-sex and same-sex couples. In addition, because the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples imposed by section 308.5 can have no constitutionally permissible effect in light of the constitutional conclusions set forth in this opinion, that provision cannot stand."

Plaintiffs are entitled to the issuance of a writ of mandate directing the appropriate state officials to take all actions necessary to effectuate our ruling in this case so as to ensure that county clerks and other local officials throughout the state, in performing their duty to enforce the marriage statutes in their jurisdictions, apply those provisions in a manner consistent with the decision of this court. Further, as the prevailing parties, plaintiffs are entitled to their costs.

The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed, and the matter is remanded to that court for further action consistent with this opinion.

UPDATE:  What does this mean?  It means that when the ruling takes effect in 30 days, you don't have to be straight to get married in the state of California.  HOWEVER, it is likely their will be an addition to the California ballot in November.  That addition is a proposed constitutional amendment (to change the states constitution) to define marriage between a man and a women.  Presumably if that were to pass, any gay couple who got married before that date would have their marriage annulled by the new amendment.  The problem is that most people don't care to vote on the issues because they are either not gay or not from the camp that calls it an abomination.

The abomination camps is already speaking out.  I'm not going to name who said this (not giving him credit) but here is the word from that side of the fence:

“The California Supreme Court has engaged in the worst kind of judicial activism today, abandoning its role as an objective interpreter of the law and, instead, legislating from the bench. It’s absurd to suggest that the framers of the California state constitution could have ever imagined there’d be a day when so-called ‘same-sex marriage’ would even be conceptualized, much less seriously considered. If anyone then had suggested the ridiculous notion, early Californians would have laughed their smocks off.

“So-called ‘same-sex’ marriage is counterfeit marriage. Marriage is, and has always been, between a man and a woman. We know that it’s in the best interest of children to be raised with a mother and a father. To use children as guinea pigs in radical San Francisco-style social experimentation is deplorable.

Some call it judicial activism.  Some call it upholding the constitution.  You decide...

(FYI - 3 of the 4 judging ruling in favor of marriage equality were appointed by republicans.  Also, according to text on the previously linked page - I am trying to destroy all that is good and sacred by siding with marriage equality.  Destroy?  Geesh.  I better get busy - I got some work to do.)

My Running Wings

When we got back from the weekend on Monday night I had a package sitting at our door.  It was a pair of Salomon XT Wings and a Nokia N82 phone.  I opened up the package and my first impression of the shoes was they were very red!  I've seen picture of shoes that others got and most of them had black leather accents.  Mine are just red.  While not a fan of the color, I must say that I don't think you can buy this color anywhere so that might be a good thing unless you really like red :)

I tried them on and they seemed cushy but maybe a little too roomy.  I needed to run in them.  I took out my phone and went to go charge it but grrr... European plug.  I had to pick up an adapater.  A few days later I have an adapter and I took my shoes out for a run last night so I have some first impressions.

When I got out of my car at El Moro yesterday a mountain biker said "those shoes look fast".  Tom, who was waiting to run with me said "I hope not" and I said "I think they just look red".  30 seconds after putting them on there were definitely drawing attention already.

The toe box is roomy.  The shoes have a wide stable and low base of support.  The heel seemed a bit loose but didn't bother me on a 5 mile run.  The laces are very easy to use as they have a lace lock system so no tieing.  You pull a little cord and they are good to go. 

As we started running I noticed right away how soft they feel.  And they are quiet.  Tom commented that it sounded like I was running on marshmellows.

About 4 miles into my run I tripped.  Was it a rock?  A root?  My new shoes?  Turns out that the lace lock system has this large loop and I didn't tuck it into my laces so it was flopping around.  I crossed my feet enough that one of them caught the loop and I went down.  Lesson learned.  And the dirt didn't taste so good but I was okay.

After the run I was quiet pleased.  My feet felt great.  I'll take them out for more miles, possibly a 21 miler on Sunday and see how they perform then.

The Nokia N82 is a GSM phone and I am a Verizon customer (whcih is non GSM) so I have not been fully able to try out the phone yet.  I did get it set up and play around with it a bit.  At first the menu and navigation was hard to figure out.  In fact I still can't figure out how to take a picture with the thing though I can get into camera mode.  I'm a pretty tech savvy girl so it's nto a good thing that I can't take a picture without reading the book.  I figured out most of the rest of the stuff pretty easy and I love the automatic screen rotation when you turn the phone.  The WiFi connection to our home WiFi was super easy and I was able to surf the net in no time with the phone.  Very easy.  I have not been able to try out the sports tracker since I need an active service for that but I plan on setting it up.  The phone has a beautiful display and looks pretty :)  I haven't figured out all the features yet becuase there are a lot of them.  This is certainly much more than just a phone and I look forward to exploring it more in the very near future.

I also hope to use the live feed option on Sports Tracker so that when I do my 33 mile race and my 50 mile Tahoe Race, I can be followed live on the internet sort of like they do at the Boston marathon and some other big races.  I think that's a pretty cool feature and we'll see how it works.

Happy Running & Dirty Feet,
Jessica

My Funny Bone

Who doesn't haven't a blog these days?

My Good Race

The journey is often more important than the destination.

We had a 4:30AM wakeup call to drive up to LA for the Malibu Creek Trail Challenge.  I got about 6 hours of sleep which is decent for me on a race night.  The night before I downed 20oz of water mixed with Nuun to help wihh my race day hydration.  We were out the door at about 5:15 and were at the starting line in plenty of time around 6:30AM.  I got my bib, did all my morning pre-race stuff and ran into both Kim, who I hadn't seen in a long time and Billy, whom I had only "met" through his blog.  It was great to see both of them and they looked ready to go!  The picture above is from Billy's camera and he posted it on his site with a very flattering comment about me.  He is too nice!  Billy ran a good race in around 2:30 and I'm not sure yet about Kim.

The race was on and within a couple miles I picked out a few people I wanted to beat.  Hey - I'm slow but I can still be competitive.  Girl #1 was young.  She was wearing long black pants, a long sleeve shirt, headphones, a hooded sweatshirt with hood pulled over her head and carried no water.  She was a shoe-in to beat right?  Girl #2 was wearing a jean jacket for the first mile of the race. 

I was feeling really good the first few miles and ready to rock.  I ran the race a couple years ago when I was a little faster in 3:09.  My goal was sub 3 but beating my PR would have worked too.  The first aid station came and went.  I didn't stop since I had two handhelds and it was a cool morning.  No water needed.  Before long my weakness came - the hills.

Bulldog hill is a long slow grind.  I lost sight of jean-jacket girl (and never saw her again) but hooded girl was in sight on the straight aways.  I was quite proud that I kept a good power hike and ran a few short sections.  In 2006 I had a few breaks where I stopped altogether.  Not this day.  Around mile 5 I passed hooded girl who looked like she was out for a sunday stroll on the beach.  I'm not sure what some people think when they sign up for a 14 mile race with 3000'+ of gain.  I stopped at the mile 6 aid station and refilled my bottles.  There was a nice downhill into that aid station but the climbing began again.  I estimated that at mile 6 I needed to average 14 minute miles the rest of the way to reach my goal.  That seemed possible.

Some hills came that I wasn't expecting.  I didn't remember so much climbing left after the mile 6 aid station from last time I ran this. Selective memory I guess!  I did some re-calcuations at mile 9 and realized I needed 10-11 minute miles to reach my sub 3, with one last hill yet to climb.  Yikes.  Either I was way off at mile 6 or I slowed way down.

The downhill came and I enjoyed passing many runners.  The important thing to me is that I was feeling great.  My back, my feet, etc.  However I did notice a problem I desperately need to correct.  My Breathing.  I'm a shallow breather.  I noticed how I rarely take deep breathes and that causes me to get tired faster, especially when going uphill.

I kept on cruising and from mile 12-13 was the only spot in the race I felt a little crash.  I walked a little on the flat section and lost a few minutes of time.  I was dreading the last hill because I remember it wiped me out 2 years ago.  Not this time.  I power hiked it all non stop and reached the top before I knew it.  All these runs up to mountain peaks are helping I'm sure.  I coasted down the last half mile into the finish line.  It's always great to see friends and loved ones when anyone finishes a race.  Nickie is such an awesome support to me and my running and woke up at 4:30AM with me, came to the race with me and waited for me to finish - snapping this picture at the end:

My time was 3:10:45.  It wasn't sub 3 or even a PR for the course but it felt great the entire run.  I learned something about my breathing.   The hills seemed easier.  And I enjoyed every step of the race.  The 13.99 miles before I crossed the finish line were pretty awesome.  And when I did finish, it's hard to beat a support crew like Nickie waiting there for me. 

It was a great day in Malibu Creek State Park.

Happy Running & Dirty Feet,
Jessica

My Princess

The season finale of Scrubs was last night.  One of the few shows I still watch.  I thought it was pretty creative but probably would have worked better as a 1 hour season finale like they are doing with The Office next week.  And season finale??  It seems like the show just started up again.  Darn writer's strike.

NBC Sports put out a list of the best female athletes.  Missing from the list is a runner or a gymnast.  Included in the list is a power player and bowler.  Go figure...

Tomorrow is my race.  I might eat Advil for breakfast.  I know it's supposed to be bad for running but I think that's just with the longer distance running and I should be okay for a 14 miler.  I like this race and I'm looking forward to it.  I think my sub 3 hour is in reach if I don't have an off day or my back doesn't interfere.

I'm sure I'll run into some familiar faces at the race though many faces I know will be running the PCT50 in San Diego.  Good luck to you all who are racing this weekend & Happy Early Mother's Day to all you moms out there.

Happy Running & Dirty Feet,
Jessica

My Millions are Where?

Not exactly running news, but since my back feels like a truck ran over it and I'm resting for my race Saturday, there's not much running to talk about.  I did read this today:

The Wall Street Journal came out with a new "wealth report" showing where the most millionaires are in the country.

The chart looks like this:

                                                                 

Rank	County	Millionaire   Households
1	Los   Angeles Co., Calif.	261,081
2	Cook   Co., Ill.	168,422
3	Maricopa   Co., Ariz.	126,394
4	Orange   Co., Calif.	115,396
5	Harris   Co., Texas	107,513
6	San   Diego Co., Calif.	100,727
7	King   Co., Wash.	75,616
8	Santa   Clara Co., Calif.	72,932
9	Nassau   Co., N.Y.	71,869
10	Suffolk   Co., N.Y.	71,343

And since I like to play with numbers on occasion, I thought it would be more interesting to see what the percentage of millionaires are in these area.  LA has the most millionaires but nearly 10 million people living there so the "pool" is diluted quite a bit.  Using Census Bureau Data, I came up with this new list of millionaires based on percentage of the population.  It's interesting that the order of these locations is almost completely in reverse.

                                                                                                             

Rank	County	Millionaire   Households	Population	Per%
1	Nassau   Co., N.Y.	71,869	1,325,663	5.42%
2	Suffolk   Co., N.Y.	71,343	1,469,715	4.85%
3	Santa   Clara Co., Calif.	72,932	1,731,281	4.21%
4	King   Co., Wash.	75,616	1,826,732	4.14%
5	Orange   Co., Calif.	115,396	3,002,048	3.84%
6	San   Diego Co., Calif.	100,727	2,942,454	3.42%
7	Maricopa   Co., Ariz.	126,394	3,768,123	3.35%
8	Cook   Co., Ill.	168,422	5,288,655	3.18%
9	Harris   Co., Texas	107,513	3,886,207	2.77%
10	Los   Angeles Co., Calif.	261,081	9,948,081	2.62%