Recipes can be good or bad, their results tasty or terrible. This particular Saturday morning recipe called for 3 hours of thigh-burning hill climbs, followed by an ice bath. Not that different from baking a nice piece of beef for three hours, then tossing it in the freezer for a half hour. Doubt you’ll find that combo in the Joy of Cooking!
But, surprisingly, it works. I met up with the crew at Peet’s Coffee, and we decide that with Dipsea clock showing 57 days and 30 minutes to start time, we can’t avoid it any longer. It is time to run the Dipsea to Cardiac, the always-challenging first four miles of the Dipsea Trail. An hour later we reach that glorious clearing after emerging from Cardiac. We then split up, and I head east, gentle climb up to Pantoll, and then continue north on Matt Davis and Coastal trails, new terrain for me. It is a spectacularly beautiful Saturday morning, 50 degrees at the start, rising up to high 60’s by the time I finish. Coastal is a treasure trove of terrain and views. It begins in a forest, not far below the summit. The path dodges fallen trees, rocks and roots, then rises into clearings with views of the ocean and San Francisco in the distance. California poppies in full bloom, thousands of them lining the hills. The Coastal trail runs just below Ridgecrest, which is the most beautiful road on the planet. They film car commercials up here, and I’ve had my best bike rides ever after climbing one of the two roads that lead up to this ridge. Our kids come up to Ridgecrest with their friends to watch the sunset and do other things we’d prefer not to know. Ridgecrest is as close to Heaven as exists on earth. Hard to believe that now I’m run all the way up here!
The trail runs below the ridge line, and dodges a rusty car carcass that has been there for a long time, and I mean a really long time. In fact, no one really know how long. When they made the trail in the 70’s, the wreck was already there! A car expert concluded that it is a 41 Pontiac because of its distinctive grill and “inline 8” engine. The tires are from the early 1950’s so one can only imagine that it rolled off Ridgecrest, flipping and bouncing to its present resting place 350 feet below the Road roughly 60 years ago. But how? Why? A drunk driver? Suicide? Kids experimenting with gravity? No one will ever know. I snap a photo of the wreck, then resume my run, ultimately reaching a ridge before backtracking two miles and then taking a hard right for the last two miles down Matt Davis to Stinson Beach.
Just under 3 hours, and more than 13 miles. Roughly 2700 feet of elevation change. I end up on the beach, with waves crashing and kids playing. Awesome! Now the ice bath part, which is logistically easy, if not painful. I shed my running shoes, and fight my way into the freezing surf, where I struggle to hold my ground for around twenty minutes as my muscles cools and the lactic acid is defeated, or at least frozen to death. Few people are in the water, most in wetsuits or too young to know any better, but I have to admit, it feels great. My muscles can feel no pain and actually feel good. After drying off in the sun, I join my cousins for brunch at the Park Side cafe, and a ride back with them over the hill completes the morning.
Bottom line: I’ve now run the equivalent of three half marathons over the last month, each with pretty serious elevation gain. Pace has not been race-level fast, but the distances run and endurance I’m building is satisfyingly shocking. Three hour runs are now routine. In a month or so, maybe four hours. Serious progress towards the Bridger. Recipe complete and successful!