After a couple of fairly flat runs, decided to add more vertical (and trails) back into the mix. Plus I hadn’t been to San Pedro Valley Park to run on Montara Mountain all this year. This course was basically three laps across all the trails that the park has to offer. With the Dixie Fire and the Caldor Fire, the air quality in the Bay Area was getting bad this week, so I was incredibly thankful to find a small corner of the world with blue skies, cool temps and low AQI. Here’s my Strava activity:

The Ouchie Wah Wah 50K

I suppose fall is in the air. The first lap, I needed my arm sleeves and headband to stay warm. It was a beautiful morning and the climb up Montara Mountain Trail was picture perfect. Fog rolling in over the hills, ocean view to the right, couldn’t have asked for a better route.

A couple of miles in marks the end of the county park, but the trail continues up, much more technical and rocky. Portions were pretty overgrown too and I was hoping there was no poison oak. Made it all the way to the fire trail and descended down. The way I had the route planned, I would go past the car every 5 or 6 miles. This way I really didn’t have to carry much at all, not even water.

The second part of the lap is a loop around the Hazelnut Trail and the Valley View Trail. These hard packed, irregular surface trails gave me PTSD. I didn’t want to twist my ankle like I did during Edge of Summer 50K.

The first two laps went by fairly easily. It was starting to get warm and my left ankle was getting a little tired. So kept the pace very easy and paid a lot of attention to the footfall. I suppose ~7,000ft of vertical on 70% legs was probably not a good idea. But again, my legs are in forever recovery mode this year! These coastal trails are pretty awesome and a nice get away on hot days or days with bad AQI. I don’t want to jinx it, but just the thought of getting to 40 ultras and the home stretch has me pretty stoked!