Heights, Water and Catwalks, Oh My

Lots of fun stuff going on here! Coaching is going well. I'm not getting as many miles in as I would like and my hip was a lot more tender after hill repeats with the 10k group Wednesday night than I would have liked. I did a couple short runs this week but other than that I've been off the wagon. My brain AND my body needed the long run release. When Linda in Paradise offered up a chance to run the flumes above DeSabla reservoir this morning I jumped at the chance.

My grandparents, aunt and cousin lived just down the fire road from the PG&E lake when I was little. We spent countless hours walking along the trails, riding sleds down the embankment in the snow by the lake and riding my cousins horses along the paths. Although it has been many years since I've spent time up there in ways it will always be a part of me and some of my best memories.

I met Linda at 6:30 in order to get 10 miles in. She ran this same trail for 10 miles yesterday with a bunch of people from Paradise that make the track down the hill in the Spring and Fall for the marathon programs. They all took the Summer off and taking to the trails up in the foothills. Today we headed off along the trail and chatted about lots of fun stuff. We run along the flume with the water running the opposite direction. There are several places where you have to walk along "cat walks" sometimes just two boards side by side and sometimes grates with a hand rail... sometimes without a hand rail...

If you know me in real life you know I'm a chicken sh*t. I don't like water... I don't like heights and I'm not particularly fond of bridges. OK I LIKE bridges a lot but I do NOT like to walk across them. Heights+water= no thank you. I just sucked it up and walked. The views were probably amazing but I wasn't going to look around and see. It was just one foot in front of the other. I'm sure that Linda was annoyed but she didn't show it. We got to one point where the catwalk didn't have a handrail. It was half of a metal tube cut in half and help up next to the cliff side of a mountain with water GUSHING flowing against the direction we were running. it was hard to keep moving forward without feeling dizzy so i took my time.

We turned around and headed back and crossed back across the same catwalks. It was a lot easier to get across then. Water flowing the same direction and better to focus on getting home that way! Linda even offered to take a picture on the long catwalk to prove i got across all by myself! The run was beautiful and I forgot that I love the sound of the water moving. There were still a lot of wild flowers in bloom and the temperatures were in the high 60's the entire time. I am definitely putting this run on my list.