All in the Family

This was a running weekend.  Say wha?  Yes, I went running.  But so did the rest of the fam.  First, on saturday morning Hayley(1st born) tore up the trails at Quicksilver County Park.  She completed an out and back, 1 mile race on the Virl Norton Trail.  She had a bunch of fun and was probably equally excited about her prizes as her performance in the race.  The kids race was held in conjunction with the Quicksilver 10k and half marathon that my running club hosts at this time every year.  This was the first year that we did the kids race, so most of the kids belonged to Quicksilver runners, but I think the word is getting out: it is way fun and you get awesome race swag.  And if you think grownups are obsessed about their race swag, you should see the way Hayley treats her 700 mL Tritan Frosted Bottle with flip up water nozzle and built in carabiner.  And it totally makes the siblings jealous too!  Ada(2nd born) was ecstatic when Hayley let her wear her medal for the afternoon.  

Hayley and gang.

I helped out the races by guiding parking before the race and setting up cabanas and finishing chutes.  This isn't the biggest race in the world... we get about 90 racers between the 10k and half marathon, but again, more people are going to be finding out about it.  The trails are great and there are lots of prizes.  I think if anyone stayed for the raffle at the end, they walked away with something.  We are talking about boxes of clif bars, salon trips, apparel, the works...

At noon, Toshi and I headed north to hook up with Marc in the Headlands(the pretty side of the Golden Gate Bridge) to scout out part of the Dipsea trail to prepare for the Quad Dipsea that will be my last race of the season.  Toshi helped out at the Quicksilver race too by directing runners at one of the busy trail intersections on the course.  

Now, a little bit about the Quad:  The Dipsea race is the oldest trail race in the country, in fact it is one of the oldest footraces of any kind in the country.  They have been running this trail since 1905.  It goes from Mill Valley on the Bay to Stinson Beach on the pacific ocean.  It is way steep and is known for its many stairs: 688 stairs on the climb out of Mill Valley, and some more on the descent into Stinson Beach.  It also has some other unique features, but they don't really pertain to the Quad.  So this Dipsea race has been around for a long time.  I guess someone wanted a bigger challenge, so they invented the double-Dipsea: Mill Valley to Sinson, back to Mill Valley.  Ok, a hilly 14 miler, but let's face it, it's not "ultra".  So yet another genius does the math and figures out that we need to run the dipsea course four times so that it is an "ultra-marathon".  So that will be my challenge on November 24th.  But between now and then, I need to find a place with a lot of stairs, and I need to hit the hills- hard.  Here is a map of the dipsea:

Dipsea Course

Marc, Toshi, and I had a blast running around.  It was a clear day- which if you are from around here, you know how hard it is to get one of those in the headlands.  We could see for miles up and down the coast.  Then we decided to climb Mt. Tam, the highest peak in the headlands and we were rewarded with incredible views of the coastline as well as San Francisco and the rest of the bay.  And I didn't bring my camera.

Then, on Sunday morning, Joanne(wife) had a tuneup race: the 2012 Race to End World Hunger 5k in the Baylands near where we live.  Joanne wanted to have some fun and gauge her fitness for her main focus race: The mermaid run 5k at Crissy Fields in San Francisco.  She did awesome, ran about 34 minutes and got a good idea of what she would need to do to beat her previous PR at the mermaid.

Color coordination is her specialty.

Running family.  Try it, it's fun.