March Madness

Letting go and seeing where the madness takes me......

Moving forward as time normally does I making progress in my fitness with my gym membership at 220 Fitness. It has a great selection of things that keep my fitness strong. From the aerobic classes of Buti, spin classes, boxing, weights and the cross-fit tools of tires & things. Additionally, I got a month of yoga at Exhale and worked on improving my flexibility which is near zero so any improvement is easy to see. Looking to touch my toes by the summer without bending my knees.  Both 220 & Exhale are within a ten minute walk from my house so I have no excuses not to go. I am also getting a good amount of time riding around on fixie bike putting in 50 miles a week on the average. The beauty is that I usually keep up or beat the traffic in the rush hour periods.

A couple trips have gotten me out of Santa Monica for some change of scene. One trip was a bike ride to the Palisades which had some nice hill climbs and beautiful views. This got me to the Temescal Trailhead. Back in January I ran some the Temescal trail so I will be adding this to the list of training courses. Knowing that I can bike there with the ease of the beach strand being a straight shot sets me for future trips. There is just one long hill climb on the bike from the ocean up to the trailhead.

En Route to the Parker Mesa on Los Leones in Santa Monica

The other was trip to Los Leones for some trail running. The run was 7.75 miles roundtrip up the Parker Mesa trail. Essentially all up then all down on the return trip. Got a few nice pictures from that run.  The view at the top of the mesa had a some marine level blocking the view of the Santa Monica Pier. This short course gives a good amount of hill climbing. The goal is to hit the return trip back down in 30 minutes or less. Setting some FKT in my little personal world and improving through summer will give me a solid understanding of my performance.

Looking forward into April I plan to hit one trail run per week. Which will include a bike ride to get there then bike back. The run itself will be most likely a hike/run mixture. Now I have Los Leones, Temescal, Will Rogers to the Hub, Westridge and Point Mugu as local options. Eventually I will be able to navigate the entire 68 miles of the Santa Monica Mountains Backbone trail all on my own.  IT is still extremely tight and mornings I wobble around with tight ankles.  Knowing the AC 100 is a mere few months away I am wondering what running shape I will be in for it.  Physically I am building total body strength in the gym. A huge thanks to Aimee Cinzori who trained me last year and helped me build several workout routines that I am still using.