Saturday, August 28, 2010

Trail running in the Bay Area

I really enjoyed running on the dirt trail along the river in Uppsala in the early morning when I was there for ACL in July, so I decided to explore the Peninsula trails when I got back, which with their slopes would help my conditioning for uphill skinning in the coming backcountry skiing season. I started with the popular trails of the Arastradero preserve, but I wanted more. First, I needed proper trail running shoes. I got some poor advice at REI for my first choice, but the staff of ZombieRunner hit the sweet spot with a pair of Brooks Cascadia 5. I loved these shoes on their first outing, 6.25 miles this cool morning at Arastradero. I also got Trail Runner's Guide: San Francisco Bay Area by Jessica Jage, ordered at Kepler's. It's a well-written, detailed guide. I did the Long Ridge loop (mostly, I missed one of the side trips) last Sunday, and I'm now studying options for tomorrow. I can't believe I've lived in the Bay Area a total of over eight years (in two widely separated chunks) and that only now I've started to taste the delights of running on these cool golden hills. Since I've started, I am looking forward to my Saturday and Sunday morning runs almost as much as look forward to a ski tour in the Sierra. It's addictive, I just hope my worn-out knees don't have other ideas.

3 comments:

Nigel Snoad said...

If you can ever make it head down to Big Basin - the walking trail down to the waterfalls makes an amazing run through the redwoods and the mist. Lots of elevation though. Mind you, it's been 10 years since I was last living in the bay and heading out to find places.

Unknown said...

Do you have a pointer to the trail run you did in Sweden?

My wife and I have run the trails here in the Bay Area for many years. One year we decided to run at a new park/open space every weekend without repeating. A year later we had easily met that goal. Just get a map and start down the list. We are very lucky to have such an abundance of great parks. Welcome!

Fernando Pereira said...

@Lee the trail went along the river in Uppsala: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Munkgatan&daddr=59.811264,17.669663&hl=en&geocode=FdBPkQMdFC4NAQ%3BFcClkAMdH54NAQ&mra=ltm&dirflg=w&sll=59.811286,17.670801&sspn=0.004543,0.010772&ie=UTF8&z=12