Tags
Coastal Trail, dipsea, Marin Headlands, miwok, muir beach, Muir Woods, north face endurance challenge, north face endurance challenge park city utah, redwood trail, skratch labs, Tennessee Valley, trail running
On Sunday, Jesse and I took advantage of the absolutely beautiful weather San Francisco is currently experiencing and went on a 14-mile trail running adventure in Marin. Although Ironman Lake Tahoe has yet to be conquered (but it’s fewer than three weeks away!), we kicked off Labor Day as the start of trail running season with 3,000 feet of climbing and a solid day on the trails.
For those of you familiar with the Marin Headlands, we parked at the Tennessee Valley trailhead and ran through Tennessee Valley to the Coastal Trail, past Muir Beach to the Redwood Trail, and took a break to refill our (many) water bottles at Muir Woods. From Muir Woods, we snaked up the Dipsea and returned to the Redwood Trail for a one-third of a mile until reaching the Dias Trail Ridge, a connector to the Miwok Trail we had never ran on before, despite having traversed much of the Marin Headlands during our many trail runs and races (particularly during the North Face Endurance Challenge). After climbing for a few miles to the top of Miwok, we descended back down Tennessee Valley.
Our original plan had been to run an out and back route, with Muir Woods serving as our turnaround; however, reading a sign indicating that Miwok connected to the Redwood Trail piqued our interest, and we decided to see where that route took us.
The day was absolutely beautiful – not a cloud in the sky. We started running around 10am, and the day quickly started heating up. By the end of the (mostly exposed) route, I was getting upset because I thought I may be getting sunburned (and you may recall the nasty sunburn I received at Wildflower), but I ended up with a tiny bit of redness only on part of my calf. I tried a new (to me) hydrating method that seemed to work really well: Skratch Labs hydration mix. I drink a couple of gallons of water per day, and I sweat A LOT (I’m talking buckets within five minutes of easy running), so drinking something with extra sodium (plus other electrolytes) helped me perpetuate my effort and avoid crashing. The pineapple flavor was inoffensive and tasty and tasted only mildly salty.
We have a bunch of trail running races on the calendar this season, and I would not be surprised if we signed up for a few more Coastal Trails, Enviro Sports, and Brazen Racing events:
Sunday, October 5: The North Face Endurance Challenge, Park City, Utah (half marathon)
Saturday, November 15: Mt. Tam Trail Run, Marin County, CA (50K for Jesse, 30K for me)
Saturday, December 6: The North Face Endurance Challenge, Marin County, CA (50M for Jesse, 50K for me)
What great trail races!!! You guys are going to have lots of fun!! Enjoy the training!! 🙂 🙂
Thank you! We definitely will enjoy ourselves! 🙂
great post. thanks for sharing. great pics too.
i love skratch labs. pineapple is my favorite too. it’s easy on the tummy, never chalky.
Yes! So tasty!
Nice! I’ve been meaning to try the pineapple Skratch. I tried Mango over the weekend and it was not very good at all.
Beautiful! The weather has been fantastic! I really want to run The North Face EC this year, but I think I may be out of town that weekend, so sad!
No! That is sad!
Nice!! So lucky that you are so close to all those trails!! Skratch is great. I like the pineapple and lemon-lime flavors!
It is great and yes, we are lucky! Wildwood is the only trail we’ve experienced in PDX, but it’s awesome!
Oh yeah! Wildwood is awesome!!
That’s a lot of trail! Congrats on a good run!
Thank you! It was quite a long one. 🙂
Looks like a beautiful backdrop for a run! Good job!
Thank you! It was a gorgeous route!
Yay for trails! Happy running ! Always love to read about your adventures =)
Aww, thanks Trish!
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Beautiful! Gosh, I miss the Bay Area so much.
You get to run in some amazing areas! So jealous!
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