California's Best Trail Run – Castle Rock 10.5 mile, May, 2004

After recovering from The World’s Toughest Half Ironman, I’ve learned two things about recovery. First, it goes a bit faster if you do light training (walking, slow swimming, etc.) than stopping altogether. Second, a marathon is much worse than a triathlon when it comes to recovery. Maybe I’m just too new at the marathons, but it took me a solid six days to feel right again…and my toenails, well, I’ll talk about that in a sec.



Trail race #5 in the season found me at Castle Rock for a 10.5 mile run put on by Redwood Trails. If you’re only going to do one trail run in the SF Peninsula area, THIS IS THE ONE. It’s an out-and-back course that cuts through the Castle Rock State Park area above Saratoga, diving down into the oaks and manzanita, back up the natural stone steps, across a gorgeous exposed ridge where you can see to the Pacific, and then down along a river briefly and back again. It’s distractingly gorgeous, with just enough incline to keep those who haven’t trained at bay. About 2,000 vertical feet overall, I think.

Within the first two miles, it was down to three runners up front. Myself, the now-lean-and-mean Derrick Petersen, and a cool bloke named Robert Brown. Robert Brown is the UK trail running champion, as well as a pilot for British Airways which lands him in SF and LA quite regularly. He is SUPER fast, a complete gentleman, and gives off this whole 007 vibe. He beat Derrick and me by a solid five minutes, and then told us he was running another ½ marathon the next day. Crazy. Derrick got a well-deserved second (complete with day-glow running shoes), and I placed third (http://www.redwoodtrails.com/2004_results/castleresults.html).

I should note at this point that my toenails are definitely showing signs of wear. I’ll spare you the pics, but it looks like somebody took a hammer to them. Two are definitely coming off soon. Christi (my wife) already has a “thing” about feet (no touching, please) and my new makeover isn’t helping one bit. Here I was hoping to look sexy in Lycra, and now I have to wear socks at all times. Alas…