"I'm sorry I suggested Mt. Diablo." Karl
"I'm sorry I said yes." Sarah
Eager to squeeze in a last long run together before I left the country, and looking for something steep and new, Karl and I chose Mt. Diablo one warm August day. The forecast called for a high of 76 (it was 93!), and that was reason enough for me to say yes, rather than my usual "Diablo is for the winter months" refrain. Karl planned a great route that would take us up Eagle Peak, to Rock City, the Diablo summit, North Peak, and back to Mitchell Canyon. We hit the trail around a quarter 'til 10am, which was our 2nd mistake. I forgot my hat and favorite sunscreen and within a couple of miles had sunscreen running into my eyes and knew it was going to be a long day. Karl was less positive than normal so I knew he wasn't having fun either. We modified our route to cut out Rock City, as I was running out of water and had no interest in running down a steep hill from Juniper Campground only to turn around and come up again to the summit. Thankfully we found abundant water around Juniper and at the Summit, as we were drinking a ton due to the heat. Poison Oak covered the mountain as thickly as icing on a homemade cake. 5 miles had over 600' climbing and several more were in the 400-500' range. There were only short stretchs (less than 25% of the route I estimate) that were truly runnable. Some of the downhills were slower than the uphills. An intensely steep stretch covered in scree landed us both on our butts coming down North Peak. No scrapes though! I hated the single-track downhill that felt impossible to get into a rhythm on. It felt like a thankless reward for all the climbing we'd done. My toes were jamming into the front of my shoe on the steep downhills and in pain. When the parking lot was at last in sight, I squeezed the last bit of my water onto my head. Both were so hot, it felt like a mini-sauna!
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| Dreaming of chocolate milk post-run at Mitchell Canyon parking lot |
You can laugh or cry at how slow going it was, I did both. Final stats: 19 miles in 5 hrs 5 min with 5867' elevation gain. Afterwards I realized this might actually be a good pace for us at TransAlpine and got a little sad at the idea of possibly going even slower. I'm pretty sure TransAlpine is on better constructed and maintained trails, with no chance of heat like Diablo, so that should make it more enjoyable! Hopefully our hellish day on Mt. Diablo will give us a reservoir of strength to draw upon during tough days on the TransAlpine Run.
The upside of a very slow day on trails is that you aren't very sore the next day. The next day we redeemed ourselves on Mt. Tamalpais with about 10 friends from the Strawberry Canyon Track Club. We got in a lovely 12.5 mile run on Coastal, Cataract, Old Railgroad Grade, and Old Stagecoach trails. We summited Mt. Tam's East Peak at 2572 feet and had a pancake breakfast together afterwards. I love how trail running is so much more than just a way to burn calories and get some fresh air. It's a chance to catch up with friends or steal moments alone. It's a way of life. Less than a day after our miserable slog on Diablo I was back in love with trails and looking forward to my next adventure!
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