Lake Chabot winter challenge
This morning we headed to Lake Chabot for the so called Winter Challenge. Hosted by the Golden Bay runners this is a good event to get out on some trails and shake off some Christmas indulgence. In our case that would be a 3000 mile roadtrip and a lot of New Mexican food.
The Challenge wasn’t much of a ‘winter challenge’, as the day was spectacular and warm. But the long course around the lake is still a good solid run.
Gathering at the start area
There was at least twice as many people as last year! The good weather had everyone excited for a nice run in the woods!
Runners already stretched out in front of us
Most of the runners ran around to the jetty, a 6M round trip. Some took the 9M loop of the lake, which heads onto nice single track running, while others ran the official course of the Lake Chabot Trail Challenge half marathon (13.1M). We took the latter except chopped it short by skipping a couple of loops, making 11 miles.
The views of the lake were great. You could only wish for such nice weather even in the summer.
View of the Lake
Unfortunately the nice paved lakeside run lasts just 1.6 miles. After that there’s a giant steep hill. It’s a walker, for the most part. Here’s Patty striding up it:
Beginning of the big climb
View half way up the Big Hill around mile 2.5. You can see where the lake ends on the top right.
Patty powers up the big hill. The longest mile.
After the hill was done we stopped and took a shot, then headed down. A group of fast runners doing the full 13 mile run past us right before heading onto the second loop we planned to skip. About half and hour later they passed us a second time!
Here’s one more photo from the run, me headed up the hill beyond the stone bridge, the last decent hill. I ran 1 min, walked 1 min up this. At the top was a water fountain with nice cold water. Ah!
Running up the hill
Anyway, the run felt good though I was pretty glad to pull into the marina area and start picking at the nice pot luck that was laid out on the table.
Going forward from here we’re hoping to do a lot more trail running for the first half of the year. Not marathon (at least not a road one!) We’ll see how we feel after this run and gauge ourselves from there.
Events, Lake Merritt Joggers and Striders, Running, Trail Running
