Monday, October 27, 2008

Blue Planet Run on the Tahoe Rim Trail


Note: I forgot to bring the battery for my camera, so all of these pictures are shamelessly pilfered from Chris and Turi's blogs. Check out their blogs for additional footage:
In the spirit of the Blue Planet 30-Mile Challenge, Chris and I had already run the first 6 miles at the Run through the Colors 10K last week (Chris won and almost set a new course record) and to finish it up we had planned to run a 24-mile run on the Tahoe Rim Trail, from Tahoe Meadows to Spooner Summit.

It was a beautiful weekend around the lake. On Saturday, the kids and I went for a 12-mile bike ride starting in Tahoe City and at night we had dinner with Chris, Abby, and their two-year old daughter.

On Sunday, I parked at the Spooner Summit trailhead and Abby graciously offered to drive us to Tahoe Meadows, where we met Turi and John Ostezan. We took off from the Tahoe Meadows trailhead at exactly 8 o'clock.

I had expected it to be very cold, but the temperature was actually really nice. This section certainly brought back a lot of memories from this Summer's 168-mile trek. This section was part of the last 40 miles of that run and as soon as it started getting dark, I started hallucinating like crazy.

Looking at the trail during the day with fresh eyes made it clear just how much I had been hallucinating. I had actually imagined a few houses along the course that were obviously not there. There were no backpacks, dome tents, and guard rails anymore along the trail, either.

We had a great run. Chris and John sped up (or maybe I just slowed down) after we reached Hobart Road and finished the run in about 4 hours, while Turi and I finished in just under 4:30. After the run we iced the legs in the lake and had lunch at King's Beach. Chris even brought some oatmeal stout-flavored Gatorade. All in all, a great day out while at the same time providing some much needed relief for 1200 students in Tanzania!

Next Up: The Monster Trail Run in Grass Valley on Saturday, November 1st.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Peter,

I have yet to run on the TRT, but reading your post and seeing your pictures definetly gives me the TRT itch.

Sean

wcooperjr said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Peter Lubbers said...

W. cooper jr:
The real snow usually hits between the end of October and the end of November. Last year, the snow came on the first of December, but that was pretty late. To be safe, I'd get out there as soon as possible, because the number of runnable weekends on the trails around Tahoe is almost over for the year.

Olga said...

Beautiful! I am envious:)

Scott Dunlap said...

Great fun! I'm sure after your round-the-lake trek, EVERY section of the TRT brings back memories. ;-)

SD

Blue Benadum said...

Your gonna blow everyone out of the water at CIM with all those high mileage altitude runs!! Nice work.


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