Whiskeytown Falls - 4 miles

I decided while I was up visiting my sister this weekend that we could pull off a really short hike. 4 miles was pretty short and it would take us to a 220 foot waterfall. We could do that in our sleep.

My 15 year old daughter, Alyx and my sister came along with my boyfriend and his 6 year old son. We drove up hwy 299 in Redding up past Whiskeytown lake and to the trail head. It was nice sunny day out and it would be a great hike. As we climbed in elevation we noticed that there were patches of snow on the side of the road.

We got to the trailhead and there was snow all over the trail. I'm not sure why I listen to the part of me that says, "It's probably just on the first part, and it's only 2 miles to the falls."

The snow got deeper. Where it wasn't deep, it was slushy.
"Your feet must be freezing!" My sister said, "Not too bad." and honestly at that point, they were doing okay. The first time the snow came through the top of them is when I felt how cold it really was. It was a slow gradual getting wet of the feet though and by the time it got in my shoe, my body heat warmed it up.

A mile and half in I had decided that I will forever and always hike in the snow wearing my Vibrams. I was shocked they were holding up so well. Yes, my feet were soaked and I was well over an ankle deep in snow, but my feet weren't cold. The grip was fine, I wasn't slipping around like I was certain I would be. At mile two we finally made it to the waterfall and it was so worth the hike! We stopped long enough to get a bunch of pictures and then we started on our way back. This is when I noticed that my feet were beyond cold. Uh-oh, had I just lost feeling at a half mile and that is why I couldn't feel the cold? OH GOD, I had frost bite! I was going to get back to the car and my feet would be purple and black. We would be spending the rest of our weekend removing my toes! OH PLEASE NO!! I was getting a bit panicked and thought about all those people that had gotten frost bite...did they know they had gotten it or were they thinking they were doing fine?
How would I keep this a secret from everyone I know? The headlines, "dumb ass woman goes hiking in toe shoes and gets frost bite. looses all toes. must cancel her spring race."

I began running. GET ME TO THE CAR! Less than a half mile later my toes were warm again. I stopped on a part of the trail that wasn't covered in snow and I wiggled my toes. They were fine. My feet were wet, but they were totally warm. The trick was to keep running and keep moving.

The truck came sooner than I had though and I got in thinking I would peel of my shoes and shove my toes in the cracks of the heater vents. No need, my feet were fine.

Would I advise this to anyone? No. I grew up in the mountains and maybe I just have part mountain lion in me. Would I do it again? probably, but no more than 5 miles.

TOTAL MILES 28.5

No joke!

I'm not going to lie, my feetsies still hurt.
It's not as bad as it was yesterday though. I almost decided to call this whole thing off.

Today my feet are a bit tender on the balls of my feet. I'm not even calculating the whole calf pain because that is what I expect and I enjoy because I know that means I am actually working those muscles.

I decided to wear them out and about this whole week and then last night my boyfriend and I went out on a date and I decided to wear regular shoes. I felt like I was walking around with cement blocks on my feet. I am not the most gracefully thing to start with, but now wearing normal shoes I feel like i'm about to trip and fall over.

7.5 in pouring rain...and I loved every second of it!

The weather has been a little funky as of late. It's been super dry, but on Friday the rain finally came and as I watched the rain come down, I knew exactly what it was doing to my trails. This glorious rain was making my trails shoe stealing soggy! Most people wouldn't be too thrilled with this fact, but the best times I have had on a few of these trails is when the rain would wash away the trail and the only way you knew how to get where you were going was to follow the mud.

Saturday was clear and my boyfriend and I decided to stay home and watch movies all day. I didn't mind so much because I figured we would have all Sunday to explore my soggy trails.
We got up early on Sunday and I looked out the window. It was going to rain, if it wasn't already raining up where I run. He had asked me, "What happens if it rains?" I had replied, "We get wet."
He was thumbing through the book and I told him I already knew exactly what trail I wanted to do. It was trail I had done a bunch of times and if the weather had any play in it, it would be knee deep messy! My favorite!!

The weather was fine all the way to the top of Robie which is a nice 3 mile trip up. Now, if you go up and over, you hit the other part of the trail you don't see when you cut up through Robie. I took the lead and like a dumb ass turned right before I should have and ended up in a place I had never been before.
My ex had done this trail last week when we had taken a few friends out and he said they added a bunch more trails and connected a bunch that weren't connected before.
A mile into it, the rain hit and we decided to turn around and retrace our steps. I bitched to myself the damn way because I knew were going to miss the rail bed part of the trail....my favorite part that I couldn't wait to share with him. My bitching in my head made me completely ignore the fact that the rain was coming down in sheets. In fact it took me another two miles before I looked up over the canyon and noticed how much it was raining. This wasn't drizzle. This was full on sheets of rain. Guess that would explain the waterfall coming off my hat. I proceeded to finally put on my jacket.

The trip back went fast. I checked my Garmin when we got to the top of Robie..."okay, three more miles and we are at the car." It was 11:47 when I took off. I checked my watch when we hit the end of the trail. It was about 33 minutes. My record for Robie. I even beat my mile per minute goal.

The shoes were fantastic. The trail was soggy mess and I just ran through it, the water didn't even bother me until I ran through the waterfall, but within a minute the water was gone and I didn't feel like I was running in wet shoes at all. It was about the last half mile in the shoes that my balls of my feet started to get sore.

VICTORY was mine this Sunday!!

Total 24.5 miles

Five more baby!!

Oh holy freaking hell I was feeling it today!!

I added another 5 to the Vibrams and it was on a very rocky, pointy, ouchey kind of trail. I was trying to get Ben to run with me so I had him hold my hand while I ran and he put it on full blast and I couldn't focus on where my feetsies were landing and I hit every sharp rock on the trail. The balls of my feet are a bit tender now.
I felt the pull in my calf again and I slowed it down on the uphill. I am hating that the uphill is the part that is slowing me down because the best part of these shoes are that they make the hills like butter.

Total Miles on Vibrams: 17 miles

Brooks Weekend...

I had to revert back to my Brooks Cascadias this weekend because my calf was still healing from the race I did last weekend.

I was craving the Vibrams on the 1200 feet elevation climb, but was grateful for the Brooks on the downhill run to the bottom of the canyon.

Next weekend is a short hike so I will get back into my Vibrams for an update on how they hold up. I've been wearing them around town for short errands I am doing in hope of it being enough to strengthen my legs for the longer hikes.

Regardless of the shoes, I had a beautiful hike with my boyfriend. It was his first big hike and it was a total of ten miles.

5 miles

I added 5 miles on my Vibrams the day before a 5k race with really stupid inclines that went straight down for a mile and half and then straight up for a mile and half!

Sadly this isn't the stupidest thing I have done out on a trail run, but this one hurts worse than anything I have done in the last year.

My boyfriend bought his new Brooks Cascadia trail running shoes a couple days before the race and he wanted to break them in and get them dusty. My boyfriend hasn't been out with me but one time before and he didn't run so I wasn't planning on him doing much running, but as soon as he felt comfortable he started running. I wore my Vibrams to add a few miles on them thinking we would be walking.

I woke up the next morning with tight calf muscles and our first 5k together was at 1pm. Sports Authority was open so I went and bought some compression sleeves for my legs and decided to wear them during the race.

My legs were screaming at me and I was so irritated with myself because I know better than to do something stupid like new shoes before a race, let alone the Vibrams which is a whole different kind of change you have to ease into. I knew I was going to wear the Brooks during the race, but didn't think that wearing the Vibrams the day before would do any damage. Wrong.

The downhill part was almost laughable, it was SO steep going downhill and to top it off it was on pavement. The trail started with a level area and then it took off uphill. I decided to walk the first couple of hills to make sure I was going to be okay and on the 3rd hill, I sprinted up it. It actually felt really good and I wanted to sprint until I got to the next leveled out area and then slow down. When I got to the top of the hill and came to a slow trot my left calf muscle seized up and it felt like I had just got slammed in my leg with a hot orange.
Fearing the DNF (did not finish) in a race, I decided to just keep moving and not say anything to anyone around me. Around mile 2 the pain was radiating all the way up to my ass and down to my toes. At 2 and half miles I just decided that I wasn't going to redeem myself in any way shape or form and I just ran when I could, ignoring the pain and knowing I would pay the price for that later. At 3 miles my boyfriend who I had told to run ahead and take on those hills, came back for me after he finished his race and he ran it in with me.

After the race I peeled off the compression sleeves and iced my leg on the freezing cold concrete.

I was good the next day and didn't jog, run or hike. I tried to not walk on it at all. It's day 2 and I woke up feeling better, but I am going to take it slow until this is healed because I know something like this could take me out for a long time!

Kristine 0 - Vibrams 1

Total Miles: 12 miles