Inspiration point

Ah, what a beautiful morning.  Got up at 5:30, drank a pot of coffee and headed up to the Sam Merrill trail.  "Power walked" up to Echo Mnt, passed a few hikers, sunrise was beautiful.  I saw a bobcat right on the trail just before sunrise...spotted, short tail, characteristic jowls...I stopped  for a couple minutes to let it clear out and made a lot of noise as I continued up the trail.    From Echo Mountain to the Mt Lowe road and up to Inspiration Point.  Not a soul up there, probably because of the Lunar New Year. (Many Asian hikers up there ordinarily).   A fair bit of snow and ice.  Then, ran down the way I came, picking up other peoples discarded water bottles along the way (4 today).  A lot of trail runners and hikers and mountain bikers were heading up to Echo Mountain as I ran down.  The hike up was slow (1:43) the run down was also a bit slow (60 minutes);  the GPS gave the total distance at 12.7miles.

The knees and quads are fine....I am seeing that the CW of downhills trashing quads and knees  is an artifact of traditional running shoes/heelstriking style.  Total mileage this week was 41miles;  about half walking and half running.  The lower calves (soleus muscles) are tight and a bit sore.  My lower legs are thickening and feel somehow my feet and lower legs feel like animal legs...OK a bit hard to describe but there it is.

The plan for next week is...active recovery walking for a couple days then back into running and walking on  alternate days;  starting each run with a one mile walk as a warmup.  For the rest of February I'll continue this base building, on into March for the higher mileage training for Leona Divide 50 in late April.