Dusting Off Today’s San Dieguito River Trail Run

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Next time I need a good night’s sleep, remind me not to do anything remotely stressful, like fill out computerized forms for next year’s college financial aid. You will wake shortly after finally falling asleep and wonder for hours how the system figures you can easily afford to pay full freight again despite one parent not having worked since last July. Between that and the pizza cheese I forgot to neutralize with a Lactaid tablet, I gave up on sleep at 4 and was housecleaning by 5 before heading to pick up my training partner for a 7 a.m. long run.

This morning our marathon training group was treated to some trail running within the San Dieguito River Park in Escondido. Inspired by one of Rob’s recent postings, I’m branching out after this year’s race commitments and planning to run my first 50k trail run on this same course a year from now. With that in mind, I set out with a couple of hundred others towards a creek turnaround, keeping a keen eye on elevation and surface changes for future reference. I was so preoccupied that I didn’t notice until the return on that leg that I’d been running and talking with a triathlete who tears it up at Tuesday track workouts. She’s fast, folks. Four miles into it, just after I’d stopped for water, I looked at my heart rate monitor, which read 170. Yikes!

So I slowed just a little (I needed to save myself for a 4-mile race tomorrow) but still kept at a decent clip with another pack as we headed up another dirt trail that traversed the San Pasqual Valley Agricultural Preserve. It was still quite foggy, which gave the place a mystic feel and, more importantly, kept temps cool. The trail was dusty, but spare of any real rocks to trip over. At the next water station three miles into the Mule Hill Trail, I grabbed Gatorade, water and one of my peppermint Lifesavers. I met up with my training partner and decided to run with her back to home base. That ended up taking longer because poor Tara had not cleared her bowels beforehand and struggled in a pristine environment of mostly low or leafless plants that is not conducive to relieving oneself au natural. I’d already proven I could move more quickly on the course, and in a sleep-deprived state to boot, so I stayed with her until we reached the lone port-a-potty at the end of the run. By then the sun had burned through the fog and the beauty of the open trail came into full view. For this urban runner, it was a site to behold. If Tara hadn’t been so preoccupied with getting to that portable toilet, she’d probably agree with me.



[Photos grabbed off the Web at Mary Beth Stowe's Website.]

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