Heat Training

Mitchel Canyon Trailhead, Mt. Diablo State Park
Saturday 9/8/07

For this weekend's trail run, I decided to incorporate some heat training. Since I am tapering, my weekend run was somewhat shorter than what I have been running during training. However, the run was not short on intensity. One thing that I learned quite recently is that while the Marin Headlands (my trails of choice for the locale) is great for hill work, one needs to travel east for heat training: the hills above Fremont, Skyline in Castro Valley or Mt. Diablo in Clayton.

I had run up Mt. Diablo once before. Actually now would be a good time for a plug. Pacific Coast Trail Runs (pctrails.com) puts on two events a year at Mt. Diablo. While the 50k event is grueling in it's own right, the 50 Miler is downright insane! For more on these two events as well as other PCTrails.com events, please visit the website.

Buzz Higgins from Benicia joined me at Mt. Diablo. Buzz, a veteren from last year's Rio Del Lago, will also be running this year. Our route was 25K with 4450 of elevation gain, most of which is during the first half. Since this was not training for time, ours was to be insignificant. Keeping in mind that I do most of my running on Ocean Beach in georgeous San Francisco, Mt. Diablo was pretty darn hot. This is a good thing as RDL probably will not be like a weekend on Antarctic. To augment the heat of day, I also wore a black skull cap and black long sleeved Sugoi shirt. I carried two hand held water bottles and an extra in my pack. I also packed Gu gel and Endurolyte capsules.

Buzz and I power hiked most of way up the summit. Along the way there is one stop for water refill and another at the summit. The journey upward was hot but for the most part my system was holding up. We took our time at the summit, enjoyed the views and all but mailed a postcard home to Mom and Dad. Having drank most of my Electrolyte water mixture on the way up, I was taking in all water on the way down. I did stop and add salt, which I always carry now, to one bottle. I was taking Endurolytes at a rate of about 3 an hour. Halfway down the mountain, my stomach felt ill, not quite vomiting ill, just a little PO'd. For some odd reason I was also developing a blister on my 4th toe (that little piggy wanted to go home!) I've been real iffy about running in these INOV8's for RDL and now my mind is made up. I've been breaking them in for the past couple months but my old ones get the gig. These new ones are the Flyroc model and honestly the toebox is quite hard and beats up the toes on the downhill. The shoe itself is comfortable and I like the low heel.

Once back at Mitchell Canyon park, we got more water and rested. Once again Mt. Diablo kicked my butt. It was a successful training run. Along the way Buzz and I stretegized for RDL. I constantly having to be reminded that this is 100 miles and I need to start out slower than normal. I also got a feel for what the heat was going to do to me. I was just now able to get down some fried potatoes and eggs for dinner some 5 hours later. Stay tuned as we get closer to Rio Del Lago, September 22/23.