Training Hood #1- Blue Hills of Boston

December 13th, 2008 Posted in Training

One thing rule I’ve always believed about pounding out the miles generally, but especially when training for Western States, is it is far kinder to your body to do so on the trails than on the roads. It is well documented that soft surface running offers the body significantly greater forgiveness, thus removing impact forces placed on the body.  An added bonus is that soft surface running can strengthen the lower leg and help prevent injuries such as shin splints and ankle sprains. This additional strength creates more power at takeoff. Concrete is by far the hardest surface to run on, followed by asphalt. “Soft” surfaces start with trails, grass, gravel or crushed gravel, rubberized surfaces, and sand.  So during Western training I try to run almost exclusively on the trails, in spite of the conditions.  Which brings me to my various and wonderful training hoods.

For Western 2009 my time will be split across three venues: Boston, Vermont and Northern California.   In Boston, my trusted and loyal training partners and fellow Trail Animals are Chris “C1″ Haley and Chris “C2″ Shanley (we’ve got to get more appropriate trail running names for them :-).   C1 is training for the Cascade Crest 100 Miler in August out in the great Northwest and C2 is “considering” attempting his first 100 miler at Vermont in July.  We run almost exclusively in the Blue Hills Reservation which is an amazing piece of of land (7,000 acres) located on the edge of the City of Boston, featuring its very own “mountain” and ski slope of 635′ to the summit and a vertical drop of 309′ - it ain’t no Mount Blanc but we love it nonetheless.  There are actually numerous “hills” across the Reservation that offer magnificent views of the City of Boston.   The convenience of having hundreds of miles of trails so close to home is a luxury.  Admittedly, the types of trails Blue Hills offers are useful for Western training, but one couldn’t exclusively train there and expect to begin to simulate the real environment of the Western course.

Western is conducted at altitude, starting at 8,300′ at the Escarpment and working its way down across the Sierra Nevedas towards Auburn, California to about 1,300′.  The race is run in late June and the tempetures can reach 110-120 degrees.  The terrain is reletively smooth single track trails that traverse through canyon after canyon with 1-3 mile steady climbs and decents.  The combination of the heat, altitude and thigh busting hills is very difficult to simulate in East Coast terrain - especially the Blue Hills.  So, thanks to the way the last ice age rearranged our world, we take what we can get and enjoy the miles we log navigating the more technical running required for the granite rock and tree root laidened trails of the East.  This “quick stepping” that you do to avoid face planting on an Eastern trail comes in handy on a run like Western - but not much.  We run every Sunday morning at 7:00 am in any weather so if you are in the area, come run with us - Trail Animals always travel better in packs