Tahoe Flume Trail Running

June 25, 2013

Eric, Maggie, Me and Ray
(Photo taken by Eric Schranz on the Flume Trail)

Back in May I ran the Flume Trail up in Tahoe. Actually, it was my mother's day present. While most moms were getting a spa day I got a run day, which for me is almost as rare as a spa day.

Ok. That's a bit of an exaggeration since the word "rare" is a drastic understatement in terms of spa days. I've never had a spa day.

So I met up with other running crazies - my friend Maggie, Eric Schranz (from Ultrarunner Podcast) and fellow artist/runner Ray Rios to carpool up to Incline Village, Tahoe. We parked near the Tunnel Creek Cafe and ran about 3 miles up - in this case "up" really means UP - Tunnel Creek road to the Flume trail. The flume is a portion of the trail that I never got to see last year while crewing for Jesse Scott at the Tahoe Rim 100 cuz we were too busy running up and down Tunnel Creek to crew Jesse. Little did I know I was so close to some fun trail that had some incredible views.

Se ran along the edge of the flume for about 5 miles while the scenery went off. SERIOUSLY. WENT. OFF. Like this dream...

except this running was for real.

and this...

Photos courtesy Eric Schranz and Ray Rios - the only people with cameras that day.

I'm still not quite sure how those boys managed to get their asses on the trail that day seeing as it was Mother's Day and all, but I wasn't questioning their tactics. I was just enjoying my get-outa-dodge-free card. Afterall, The Flume trail is a trail that my husband has talked passionately about on his mountain biking adventures and I was looking forward to seeing the best parts of the trail, which oddly enough included this:

That's a toilet seat shaped piece of granite, by the way. And... um... I was eating my sandwich and demonstrating its useability for giants or people who prefer to squat on the toilet instead of sit - like my kids.

I will admit. I was feeling a little mischievous that day... and I may (or may not have) thrown a snowball or two at Eric while he was running. Throwing shit at people I barely know is my other hobby.


Wha? A snowball in my hand? I don't know what you are talking about.

And as always Maggie and I had to demonstrate our jumping on snow skilz...

While Ray Rios demonstrated his chimney climbing skilz at some old cabin remnants near Marmot Lake...

all the while Eric Schranz demonstrated his tick crushing abilities...

This was shot BEFORE he crushed the tick.
With that look of disgust on Eric's face that tick
shoulda seen it comin'.

Then we headed back down the mountain for some grub and it was then that my right achilles decided to poke me with its pangs of angst. It wasn't too bad, but enough that I decided to back off my downhill pace to give it some slack. It was a good thing. I managed to keep it from bitch slapping me, but it was clearly aggravated when we stopped for lunch.

So its been a little more than a month and my achilles has still been giving me grief and getting progressively more sore. Ok. I'll admit that pushing it with the 10k time trial several weeks ago was not the best of decisions.

So I've been adjusting my training at the gym, laying off the running (a little), rolling, rolling and rolling, and lastly using some questionable but effective prison-style tactics (don't ask) to speed the healing process along. I'm hoping this achilles stuff will be on the mend soon. Apparently, once its better I need to work on my running mechanics to make sure I'm deloading the tension in the tendon which I have a tendency to neglect on a regular basis.

It's killing me to lay off the running, but I'm hoping that I'll have time to make up for it before my 100. Luckily my training at the gym is a strong substitute for running but when the trails call me and I can't go it makes me very sad.

But I'm so glad I got to run the Flume even though it was my downfall. Next time I'll know better.
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