As promised, our goal this weekend was to explore new route from San
Antonio Ranch to Black Mountain trail head.
Part of my sleep was replaced by the excitement which made me get up at 5:00am .
Felt like I have enough sleep already. So I just took my time to watch
one of Star Trek Voyager episodes again and also finished my breakfast without hurry.
By the time I was ready to head out, it was just 7:00am.
Not bad for an early start of the weekend.
Initially, I thought we could start off from Yi's place,
which we didn't need to worry about parking and just ran along the
Fremont Ave for 1.5 miles, entered the San Antonio Ranch via another side entrance.
Kai seemed to worry that it might be too far, and to run on the street was
not quite comfortable to him.
Somebody voted NO, then we'll just sticked to normal way of getting there.
It was 7:30am when we arrived, a "parking lot is full" sign was already there.
What !!
This was new to us, even though we knew this was a very popular place,
but 7:30 in the morning !!
Since when did the people passion about outdoor activity this much??
I didn't recall seeing any celebrity mentioned about this place on TV recently.
Anyway..
Well, in order not to waste our time to wait for a spot, we decided to
make a road side parking about a mile away from the entrance,
added some warm-up distance.
Very lucky, Yi found that there was a small trail along side the Cristo Rey Drive and
headed to the direction of the ranch, we jumped it without second thought.
started our run.
The trail was really easy to handle and it gave you a different view
of the scene , we've been here countless times, and never set foot on this trail before.
In the morning of the spring, blue sky,
green grass, breezed wind, it was like running in the movie .
beautiful trail.
a small pond.
into the ranch, and headed to parking lot.
It didn't take long before we hit the ranch, there were even more cars
waiting for a precious spot. This was really crazy...
the parking lot full of cars, waiting to get a spot.
We made a short stop at the restroom, released some load, stretched,
then we hit the road, headed into the wood. With my music on, right
tempo could give you some lifts for the run. I just can't help smiling
and enjoyed the moment.
Wow, right after I took the picture, a deer just walked pass me !!
It was about 0.9 mile to the Deer Hollow Farm, from there, we needed
to pass the gate and went straight into the valley.
Deer Hollow Farm
Kai started to lead.
It started with a slow uphill
and you could see some small birds and rabbits frequently running across the road.
And some people already made their way back to the exit.
It went about 1 to 1.5 miles to a intersection. You could see a pond on the right hand
side. It was pretty dry last time I came here, but now it became a really beautiful
pond !!
We turned right, followed the trail and started to go uphill. The
hill wasn't too steep to run, but enough to make you gasp a bit.
That's exactly what we were looking for. The variety of the road made
it more fun than just a flat paved one. That's why I preferred trail running
than road running, unless there were more girls on the road. :-P
uphill started here.
need to make a 180 left turn here.
the little blue dot was Kai.
I stopped couple times to take some photos, but I knew I could go straight
up without resting. It made me think back when I first saw the slope in Tilden Park few weeks ago. "Oh my God" was my only word in my head at that time.
I hoped after several training runs in the future, I could have more confidence to face
that trail again.
Kai looked pretty strong today, he lead the pack most of the time.
I think he will be more confident about trail running after today.
Hopefully, he enjoyed the trail today, and joined us for the next race.
Finally, we reached the end of the hill, it was a T junction. Now we needed
to make a left here , and it was a small ripple road, snaked around the
hill, very easy to cruise along , very breathable . With a 9 min/mile
pace , made it a perfect speed to enjoy the scene and also watched out
the rocks and cracks ahead.
When we were cleared out of the wood, cut through a green flat plain,
there it was, the trail head of the Black Mountain. About 5 miles from
where we parked the car. Nice jogging, guys.
the destination: trail head to Black Mountain summit.
Yi arrived.
As usual, we hydrated , refuel, the second half of happy ride home...
I think this route could be one of our favorite training routes, very
good distance and hill condition. For a half marathon race, this is a
good place to train on.
make our way back to parking lot.
Maybe, next time, we could run all the way to the summit of the Black Mountain.
That should be another fun trip !!
Summary:
Splits:
Elevation:
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