South Mountain In Reverse

Usually when people run South Mountain up to Dobbins Point they start at the second guard shack by the bathrooms (which are newly remodeled)) run to the top, take in the view and then run back down.  The second part of the run is "easier" because it's downhill.

For my crater lake rim run I am running South Mountain in reverse...starting at the top, running down and then back up.   The road to the top is curvy and it takes almost 15 minutes to drive to the top.  Bikers and runner traverse the same road so extra caution is needed to keep everyone safe.  The park opens at 5am and with the extra drive up, you are eating into that precious time which is much needed in the summer. This morning we got out the door late and didn't start our run until 5:30am.

Once running it was beautiful with the sun having just come up and it was "cool" considering the high today is supposed to be 116 degrees.  Since it's easier to run downhill, we had to make sure to go out slowly otherwise the return trip, uphill, in the heat and the sun would be a death march.  Running the hill in reverse does have one great benefit and that's refilling the water bottles at the half way point.

The sun was out in full force when we started back up the hill.  The miles ticked off slowly in the heat and I kept going.  Had John not been out there with me I may have walked towards the end but really wanted to run the full thing.  To prove that I can run when the going gets tough.  The last two miles we were rewarded with the sun hiding behind the cloud and I slugged my way to the top.

I allowed myself to just run and not worry about pace.  For my birthday I got a Garmin 610 and the download of data is mind blowing easy.  I walk into the room with the watch and computer powered on and data is transferred. How much easier can that be?  You can see at the end where the pace severely dropped. Multiple times my Garmin showed 13 min pace but it was more important to get through this run and the next one I can push it more on the way up.  I'm pleased with my 1:34:14 (avg 9:18) for the 10 miles especially when compared to the same 10 miles run the regular way in the winter when I was in better shape at 1:20.  I have two more reverse South Mountains on the schedule with the next one being in two weeks.  I can beat the time for this run.