My run home

I was nervously excited the whole day, since the distance from work to home is one of the longer distances I've ever run and certainly the longest since my injury, by about 4 or 5 miles.

I changed into my running clothes after fueling up on a half-serving of pasta with red sauce & vegetables and hydrating myself. I was out of the office door around 4:00. I turned on my Garmin Forerunner and waited for it to find a GPS signal so I could start my run. After 15 minutes of the Forerunner searching and not finding GPS, I came to terms with the fact that I will not know my exact distance. This is only the second time the Garmin failed me, and it came at a rather bad time. At that point I started the timer and headed onto the sidewalk of Agoura Road with a course set for Cheeseboro Canyon.

This first third of my run was not so great. I felt sluggish, from the high-protein lunch I had (poor choice) and the fact that I hadn't had a good night sleep in a few days. Also, Agoura Hills is laid out as subdivisions so the only way to get anywhere is to take the main roads. These main roads (Thousand Oaks, Reyes Adobe, Kanan, Agoura) are too busy to run on, so I had to stay on the concrete sidewalks. Concrete is, depending on who you ask, 4 to 10 times harder than asphalt. For my joints, it certainly feels like closer to 10 than 4. With every step I could feel my knees and ankles getting more sore. I had to stop and stretch them often. Nevertheless, my right leg was starting to ache. Finally I got to Old Agoura, a horse community, where instead of sidewalks they have dirt trails next to roads for horses. I even saw a community park. I made a pit stop there and stretched out on the picnic tables. My spirits were finally soaring. I got back on the horse trail, my ankles and knees finally getting some relief. Shortly after getting to Cheeseboro Canyon Road, and approximately 50 minutes into my run, I saw Liberty Canyon trail.

I'd never taken this trail before since I always park at Cheeseboro Canyon trailhead. Overall, it was a very nice trail. Mostly grassland and oak groves. It has an abandoned ranch and bridges over a large creek.

At around 1 hour into my run, I got onto Cheseboro Canyon trail, but not before some self-doubt as to where I was. The trail was full of runners, mostly high school kids, presumably from Agoura HS. I made a right onto Cheeseboro Ridge Connector. I was a little concerned about the trails since it had been raining all week, and the trails were soft, but luckily not too muddy. At the intersection Cheeseboro Ridge trail, my trail became Las Virgenes Canyon Connector trail and proceeded to turn into a steep downhill. With the pounding of the downhill, my soreness in the right leg returned. I passed a runner puffing uphill. I am sure we both were wishing we could switch places. I was hoping Las Virgenes Canyon trail would come quickly!

Soon enough, it did. After dodging a gaggle of kids on dirt bikes, I turned left and started heading up Las Virgenes Canyon trail, when I came upon the water crossing. Normally, this is a small stream that can be easily hurdled, but with the recent rains, it swelled up to decent creek around 8-10 feet wide, certainly not a distance I can jump. I spent a good deal of time looking for a narrow section, but it was not to be found. I decided my best bet was to jump to an oak tree in the steam, closer to the other side, and use what appeared to be a large bird's nest near the bottom of the tree as a platform to jump to the other side. It almost worked. I nearly caught the trunk with my hands, but my right foot slipped and got wet. No big deal. I wondered why I didn't just run through the damn thing in the first place?

East Las Virgenes Connector (ELVC) trail came up soon after, and I crossed past the fence that marks the boundary of the old Ahmanson Ranch. At that moment, I had mixed feelings. On one hand I knew that from this point, it was exactly 3 miles to the Victory trailhead. On the other hand, ELVC is mostly uphill and fairly steep at certain points. I was also starting to feel the distance, and my whole body was getting tired. I remembered that just 15-20 minutes ago I was wishing that I was running uphill instead of down, and realized I was crazy. On the very first steep portion, I was smitten and forced to walk for a short time. Finally, the intersection with East Las Virgenes trail came. I made a left and was on very familiar turf. By this point most of my muscles were aching and my nipple was chafing. Muscle pain is easy to ignore, but the chafing nipple was a big nuisance.

Along East Las Virgenes, there is a point where you can continue on the main trail and take the high road, or take the low road on this single-trek trail running parallel to a creek that meets up with the main trail later. Since I didn't feel like running uphill anymore, I took the low road. Several minutes into it, the trail was getting muddier and muddier. I saw that up ahead, this trail was completely underwater, swallowed by the swelling creek. To turn back was demoralizing, but there was nothing else I could do. The uphill was brutal, and once again I had to walk much of it. On the rest of the trail, there were many muddy spots and at one point my shoes were carrying an extra two pounds of mud. Luckily, I was able to wash some of the mud off in a puddle. Soon I saw the rooftops of the houses off of Victory, signifying I was close to the trailhead. And, boy, was I glad to get there. By this point I was completely exhausted and was getting really hungry. The pasta had long been digested and burned off. Also, I was completely out of all my water and getting thirsty. I had been running for 2 hours.

I called Dimple to let her know I was ok. She tried to convince me to let her pick me, but I told her that I was intent on finishing unassisted. After I told her that I loved her and hung up the phone, I headed down Victory on the final leg of my journey. I ate an energy bar and tried to migitate the pounding of the steep downhill on concrete by going as slow as possible. My left foot was really starting to hurt, bringing painful memories of my plantar fasciitis injury.

At the bottom, where Victory intersects with Valley Circle, I stopped by a gas station and bought a bottle of Vitamin Water and a bottle of Fiji Water to replenish my water supplies. I headed towards Platt and made a right, and then a left on Calvert. From there I knew I had exactly 2 miles left till home. There is a very small hill on Calvert, something that wouldn't even be considered a hill on a trail. But today, this hill kicked my ass. Once again, I had to walk a bit to the top, feeling the lactic acid burning my muscles. By this point, keeping proper form was a constant struggle.

Coming up on Fallbrook, I was already anticipating the end. Unfortunately, Fallbrook is a very busy street and since there is no traffic light or stop sign at Calvert, crossing it is not easy. When I came upon the street, there was a break in traffic, so for safety I sprinted across to the other side. That sprint was quite costly, as my muscles, full of lactic acid, burned like fire. They felt like they couldn't take another step anymore. But there was only a half mile left, and I knew that I was almost done.

Two hours and forty five minutes after I started running, I finally walked through through my front door and asked Dimple if we had anything to eat. I was exhausted, all of my muscles were sore (especially my lower back) , my left nipple was completely red and excruciatingly painful, but actually I was feeling pretty good. As I sat down to have dinner with Dimple and Josh, I was thinking about whether I should repeat this experience next week.