Fire and Frustration

I had my mind set on driving to Wrightwood and doing a long training run on Saturday. I thought it would get me out of the smoke and give me a chance to look at the start of AC100. This wasn't in the cards, I guess, as too many things came up to prohibit this adventure. I spent most of Saturday morning looking for access to a trail to run. The Zaca fire had caused all access to Figueroa and Paradise and highway 154 was closed. I even went out 166 past Santa Maria and the access road to some wilderness out there was even closed. I tried a trail a friend told me about, but it was just way too hot for Phoebe and there was no shade to leave her in the car.

Needless to say, I was pretty irritated and just wanted to run! I finally settled on grass mountain and decided to take my chance with the smoke and trail closures. I was able to access this trail as usual and tried out some new loops that I recently learned about. It was scorching and I only had my two water bottle carrier, which is great, but doesn't hold as much water as my hydration pack. I was miserable by the end, with no water, no shade and rubber legs from going up grass mountain twice. I think the elevation gain must be like 3,000 ft. I have to check on this. It's straight up. It really hurts. I spent 4 hours out there. It took me a while to rehydrate at home.

The next day I went to Romero Canyon and did a 3 hour out and back run. I ran into some mountain bikers and two runners. All from out of town. They all loved the trail and the views of the ocean and the mountains. The weather pretty perfect yesterday. I even fell in love with Santa Barbara again. I felt great, too, not at all fatigued from Saturdays run which surprised me.

I heard this morning from a client who is on evacuation alert, that they now estimate the fire will go till October. October! I just hope there are some nice trails left for me to run around on. We all need to do a little rain dance.



Zaca fire from grass mountain