Showing posts with label jogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jogging. Show all posts

Sunday, August 08, 2010

Weekly Running Log -- (Whisman Park to Shoreline Park , 07/03/2010)

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Even this weekend was the long weekend, I still managed to run with my buddies before my 3 days vacation. This route was found by Yi and Kai a weekend when I was out of town.
We started at a small community park called : Whisman Park, from there, there was small paved road right behind the park dedicated for runners and bikers. It stretched 2 miles north into the Shoreline Park, and another 2 miles to the starting point of our old training trail in Shoreline Park.
The biggest route could be as far as 17 miles if we really like to tackle.

As soon as we hit the trail, we needed to cross a big blue steel bridge, with the mostly gray background color, the blue seemed very vivid in sight.

Then followed by a underpass tunnel under the high way 101 .

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Came out of the tunnel , it began with the endless PG&E Towers. It really made you feel like
running under some Giants. Technically, it might not be a healthy trail due to the strong EM field around these towers....

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The towers ...

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Ready to turn into the park.


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We were in the park.

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Once we were in the park, the trail was along side the bay, we could start to see a lot of wild birds and small animals.



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The easy 8 miles made it a good start for the long weekend. 

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Weekly Running Log -- Shoreline park (05/08/2010)

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From time to time, we would go back here to run again.
The shoreline park, which was our origin of running. Everything about
running started here.
I could still remember how I finished my first 3 miles in shaking legs
and begging for air in this trail and couldn't barely walk for the rest of the week.
This is one of my favorite spot to run in bay area.
In order to take our legs out of back-to-back weekend's trail run, we
decided to come back here again, just to relax, enjoyed the sun, fresh air ,
and of course, the amazing scenery.
It was hard to imagine this park was built on tons of trash. Now, it is a paradise for wild life
and of course the runners.


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Took off

Our starting point was actually north-west of the shoreline park, it should be called:
Palo Alto Bayland Park. The parking was much easier here than it was in the Shoreline Park.
I guess that's the only reason we started from here..

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It was early May, there were still some flowers along side of the trail. After June, it will be all dry and yellow, plus, there was no where to hide from the sun here. Unless you are trying to do some heat training, I'll think twice if I want to come here in summer.



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Somehow, there were not too many birds today, it was unusually quiet. I guessed sometime back in winter, there were thousands of birds here, and it was so noisy that you needed to talk louder to hear each other.


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When you saw this bridge, it was about 2 miles.

Our routine route was from park lot on San Antonio Rd, went around the Palo Alto airport
and back. Total about 9 miles. All flat road, no ups and downs. The only thing needed to worry about was bird dumps. Sometimes, they would cover the whole road and you needed to be very careful of your steps.

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Bay view


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the pole array, I wonder what they are used for.




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turn right headed to natural center.

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Airport.



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Started from here, there was all paved road. We needed to run on the road side until
we passed the golf court. Most of the time, there were very few cars on the road, it was pretty safe.

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golf court



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Because of I was busy taking photos, I didn't notice I was left far behind. This kind of stop-and-chase felt like I was doing some tempo run. It was definitely not easy at all.
In the end, I had to shout and called the guys to wait for me.. Ha ha...what a shame.

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The goose and the chicks.


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Athlete Center

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There was a bike trail head at the corner of the Athlete center Parking lot.

From here, we could go around the golf court and the air port.


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golf court was on the right.



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passed the airport.

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another side of the airport.

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Natural Center



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the board walk stretched into the bay.

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Kai arrived.



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don't know what they were talking about.

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old boat house.

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return to parking lot.



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Kai finished.

Summary:



After the run, we decided to go to McDonald for breakfast. Well, not very tasty though.
I guess Subway was better . Next weekend will be ING bay-to-breaker. I'll see if we could still mange to do a trail on Saturday since Kai didn't register this year...
I prepared some funny hat to wear this year, it should be fun!! 












--
Sent from my mobile device

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Los Gatos Trail (04/03/2010)

Los Gatos Trail -- 12 Miles by itaotsai at Garmin Connect - Details


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寫在頭前
Shoreline park 算是我們跑步的原點,因為以前住在那附近,所以後來雖然搬到南邊,
我們一開始還是都跑來北邊跑步,後來是實在是跑得有點煩了,因為那裡大部分都是老人跟野鳥,越跑越沒動力,更北邊一點的 Saywer Camp 雖然是美女如雲的跑步地點,但是光是開車就得50分鐘,所以我們就決定試著去找找有沒有別的路線可以跑,在一番搜尋之下,沒想到居然在我家附近就有這麼一條又長,又安全的運動路線。

基本上,Los Gatos Trail 是沿著 Los Gatos Creek 跟17號公路,北從 Willow Glen 附近的 Meridian Street , 南至 Los Gatos 的 Lexington Reservior 水壩,從北邊開始,一路上都是paved road 一直到 Los Gatos Downtown 附近才變成碎石子路,全程大概有10.2英里,
沿路還會穿越兩個公園,加上 trail 兩邊豐富的動物生態,讓這條路線成為南灣最受歡迎的運動休閒的場所,每到週末都是人們攜家帶眷的來這裡運動,沿路上最受歡迎的起點就是 Campbell Park. 因為這裡停車方便,而且公園裡的活動設施又不錯,所以我們也是以這裡為起點,然後往南邊跑,跑到 Lexington 水壩大概有8英里,基本上,除了做馬拉松訓練之外,16英里來回對於跑步應該都是很夠的啦,另一個好處是,這裡的路上有 Mileage Marker , 讓你知道你跑了多遠,對於跑步的人真的很方便。

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籃球場跟鞦韆

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這個公佈欄就是我們的起點。

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起跑前的暖身 Yi and Kai.

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Me and Kai 起跑前的拉筋 ( CW-X 兩人組 ) ...

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一開始的一英里,花季的時候,兩邊都會開滿各種顏色的花。

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一英里處會是一個上坡,然後穿越 San Thomas Express 的底下。

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會先經過 Los Gatos Creek Park.

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湖邊有時候會有很多人釣魚,同時野鳥也是很多。

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過了公園,就到了兩英里的Marker.

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我本來不是要拍 Kai 的....

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沿著路一直跑,大概在 3.5英里左右 會有另一個上坡,上去之後就是進入 Vasona Park .

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Vasona Lake

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湖的另一邊是一個小水壩。

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跟路邊吃早餐的野雁打聲招呼吧. 有的時候遇到整群野雁過馬路,就得慢下來,從牠們的中間走過,牠們一點都不會怕人。

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四英里的Marker.

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Kai 在這裡稍做休息,吃 GU 補充能量。
奇怪,Yi 跑到哪去了。

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Yi 也到了,昨天我們到這裡就回頭了,不過今天我一個人又繼續沿著路跑下去。


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經過了這個小火車的平交道,就準備出了公園,繼續往南走。

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小小火車站。

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路上盛開的野花。

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出了公園的第一個路口,Miles Ave 到這裡大概是5.5英里,也是柏油路面的最後一個Marker

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5.5 英里的 Marker.

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進入 Los Gatos 就有一個告示牌。

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首先,會先經過一個木棧道,我很喜歡跑過這裡的聲音,碰碰碰碰,每一步聽起來都很紮實,
很有節奏的感覺。

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然後一個左彎,上這座很有色彩的橋。

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從橋上往下拍17號公路的車子。

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下了橋可別走錯邊了。

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每次都會經過的建築物,今天才知道是一間博物館。

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橋下牆壁上的塗鴉。

Los Gatos Downtown 附近的入口
看到這個牌子表示已經到了 Los Gatos Downtown.

6英里的地方,因為這裡已經沒有milage marker
看到牌子之後,都是碎石子路了,當你看到路邊有大水管的時候,就剛好是6英里的地方。


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手上的 GPS 手錶也顯示是6英里左右,花了52分鐘,好吧,該回去了,很久沒跑這麼遠,
再跑到水壩可能會跑不回去了。。

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慰勞一下自己的雙腳,12 英里,搞定。


後記
這就是我們平常每個禮拜都會來朝拜的地方了,遇到人多的時候,會同時有好幾個
Running Club 的人在這裡做訓練,上次還遇到一個老伯,為了慶祝他65歲生日,還找了很多朋友辦了一個 5km 路跑的比賽,真的是非常有意思。