Kerry's Running Blog

One of the last of our long runs. Got up with Laureen about 5:00 am and took the grand tour of Cedar Hills, Alpine, Highland and even a little bit of Manila. It was quite cool before the sun came up and so we didn't mind it at all when the sunlight finally hit. It was a nice time to catch up on everything and although tiring, wasn't too bad. When I got back I took a little nap, mowed the lawn and drove back to San Diego. I was a bit stiff after sitting in the car, but other than that it wasn't too bad.

I haven't been blogging my runs lately, but I'll have a little more time to do that now. I'll be running with Laureen on Saturdays, but during the week I'll be going solo (as I'm now working weekdays in San Diego).

The building that I work in has a gym (pretty decent equipment) and showers. I took off a little before noon, just to explore the neighborhood. After about a mile or so on the streets, I found some dirt roads to run on. The first one I tried ran into a dead end after about a half mile and the second one I tried was really steep and covered with loose dirt. It was tough going down and even tougher coming back up. I could see other dirt roads off in the distance, but couldn't see a way to get over to them. I'll have to try to find someone that really knows this area well.

Great noontime run. Not being familiar with the area, I looked at the mapmyrun website and found a little loop nearby. After about a half mile of running along a busy street and through a parking lot I found the path I was looking for. It was pretty narrow at the start and then opened up onto a dirt road that quickly dropped down into a little valley, which eventually led to a parking lot adjacent to a wilderness area. There was a dry creek right next to it and I ran along that for a ways, through a strand of trees and along the base of a steep brush covered hill. For a mile or so you could completely forget that you surrounded by freeways and big office buildings as you can't hear any traffic there or see anything except wild country. After running along a mostly flat section I saw a sign that said something like "Old Lopez Road". I decided that was probably the way back up and so I started running up that path. The trail started to climb and became fairly narrow in spots. It was quite an effort to keep going with the sun beating down. After a mile or so I was back up on top and running along a nice trail behind office buildings. When I got to what I thought was the end of that trail, I turned back into a parking lot and ran back along what I thought was the street leading back to my office. It wasn't. I kept running along the street hoping to  catch sight of some kind of landmark. The further I ran, the less familiar everything looked. I finally stopped and asked someone for directions and he told me that the street I was looking for was in the opposite direction. Running that way I started to recognize some of the buildings and was soon back on familiar ground and found the way back to my building. You'd think that seeing Qualcomm on the side of a building would be a good landmark, but it turns out that there are thirty-eight buildings of various sizes with the Qualcomm name on them (they have twelve shuttle vans that are kept busy taking employees from one building to another). It's certainly a lot easier to get lost than I would have thought. It turned out to be quite a good run as I was still sweating a half hour after a cold shower.

Ran the Los Peñasquitos Canyon loop at lunch again and only got a little lost once. There was a nice breeze blowing and the temperature was very comfortable until I made a turn and had the breeze at my back (of course it was uphill at that point and running into the sun). Felt a lot better than last time although my ankles were a bit sore from the rough trail in places. Fortunately there's a lot of shade the last mile or so.

My ankle was a little sore this morning when I got up so I thought I'd take it a bit easy and see how it felt. When I started to run I felt some momentary pain and eased off, but it all went away in a couple of minutes and I just started running normally. I didn't know where I was going, but soon came to the Ted Williams Parkway. I didn't want to wait to cross it so I just ran alongside it for a ways before turning back towards my apartment. The morning was cool, humid and very pleasant. A good run all in all.

LP loop

LP loop

Ran the LP loop. Cooler today, mostly cloudy with a nice breeze. Kind of took it easy. Couldn't get away yesterday and didn't run on Saturday because Laureen wasn't feeling well and I needed to spend time helping out around the house (flew in Friday night).

When I reached the park entrance today I noticed a sign that warned about rattlesnakes along the trail. I'm sure the sign was there all along, but I noticed it for the first time today. I thought how strange that would be to run into a rattlesnake in San Diego when I haven't seen one for years on all our runs through the wild in the Utah. Well, of course, that's exactly what happened. I came around a turn and there stretched out across the path was a rattler about four feet in length. It wasn't moving anything but it's tongue. I found a little stick and threw at it before it moved off the path and started rattling. I was wishing I had my iPhone with me to take a picture of it. Anyway, I'll have to keep my eyes open along that path.

LP loop

LP loop

Good run this morning. Left about 7 just as it was starting to get a bit warm. Ran up to Del Norte and then down to Ted Williams Parkway and then back. Mostly gentle up's and down's. Average pace: 8:30.

For some reason the GPS wouldn't lock into today, so I'm just guessing on the distance. Intended to go for a short easy run, but went off exploring and got onto a long,winding, downhill street. I didn't realize how long until I turned around and started back up. Somehow the breeze I'd felt earlier disappeared about the same time. My head was burning by the time I got back to the top, but I felt pretty good. Spent extra time cooling off in the shower.