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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 Lake Merritt Joggers and Striders, Running, Trail Running

The Dick Houston Memorial Woodminster is a cross country race here in Oakland now in its 42nd year. You might not normally associate Oakland with cross country racing opportunity, but in fact Oakland is bordered to the East with beautiful hills that hold some great trail running. Redwood shaded creeks that are great for hiking and steep rough terrain which makes for tough running.

Originally we were going to run this race, a 9 mile event which runs over some of the toughest course you could imagine around here. Instead, we decided it was time to work on running longer and not potentially injure ourself on this. So, rather than run it I decided to take some photos.

Woodminster is a handicap race, different age groups leave one after another. If I was in it I’d be 4 minutes in front of the fastest group (the young men), and about 20 minutes behind Patty in the old ladies group. Here’s a couple of photos from the start:

Runners coming down the hill near the finish:

The trails are mostly like this, although there’s hills which bring the whole field to a walk. Last year we were hiking on the day of this race and had a nice conversation with one of the racers as we walked up one of the more serious hills.

Here are a few more photos of the runners. This first one is the winner, Roy Rivers.

And I think this is the first place woman:

The rest of the photos are here, and the organizers were excited enough to have some one take photos they sent out a link to my photos with the race results and on their page.

Events, Photography, Running