Two Days in San Diego

I planned to run 100 miles in San Diego over four days. I came home two days early, and I have been making up the difference at TriFit in Santa Monica since.

The two days I did get were good ones: 65 miles between them, most of it along the coast. I count the whole day, including the miles before a run, the ones the watch missed, and the treadmill at the hotel. The numbers here include all of that, beyond what is in each GPS file.

Day one: downtown, La Jolla, and back

Before the run started, I ran 5.4 miles through downtown, because I wanted to see more of it. It was not yet 7 AM, the city was still quiet, and the legs were happy at 8:48 a mile.

Then the run itself: out past Old Town and around Mission Bay, up the coast through Pacific Beach to La Jolla, a loop up onto the mesa through UC San Diego, and back down into the city. The watch recorded 32.4 miles of it. Two more went untracked along the way, at about 9:20 a mile.

At La Jolla Cove the marine layer was still sitting on the water, and the sea lions were doing what sea lions do at ten in the morning, which is nothing, in a pile.

Then UC San Diego. I knew it was a big campus, but I expected to be out the other side in a few minutes. It keeps going: buildings, roads, paths, and then more of all three.

Besides a small blister, the only real problem all day was chafing. It bothered me a lot between miles 30 and 40. That one is on me: heading out for a day that long without Vaseline ready is a rookie mistake, and not one I plan to make twice.

Day two: a marathon, to a beach

The plan for Friday was about a marathon. I wanted to finish at a nice beach rather than run a loop, and Mission Beach was about 15 scenic miles from where I was staying, up near Del Mar. That is not a marathon, so the rest came first: 10 miles on the treadmill in the hotel gym at 9 minutes a mile, a 30 minute meeting, and then out the door.

It was hot. I left at 1:20 in the afternoon and went straight down to Torrey Pines State Beach with the sun almost overhead.

That is the Del Mar end of it, and standing there I had a question. The beach keeps going south under the cliffs, and I wondered if I could just jog along the water the whole way without getting wet. I was not sure, and I did not feel like finding out the soggy way, so I went up the hill instead.

No regrets. Up the Torrey Pines grade, the high point of the day at about 450 ft, was a really nice run, and then past UC San Diego again, which is still huge, and down through La Jolla Shores and La Jolla Cove, along Bird Rock and Pacific Beach, and onto the sand at Mission Beach.

Then dinner, and the Padres doing their part.

What I learned

Hours on an exposed coast in October take something out of you, whether or not you notice it happening. Sun protection matters on the run itself: sunscreen before, sunscreen again during, a hat, glasses. The turtle had it right.

UC San Diego is huge. Plan your route through it, and plan for it to take longer than it looks.

And carry Vaseline!

One question I still have: can you run the beach from Del Mar down under the Torrey Pines cliffs without getting your feet wet, or does the tide get you? If you know, leave a comment below. Next time I might take the low road.

The totals

• Day one: 39.8 miles. 5.4 through downtown before the start, 32.4 on the watch, 2 it missed. 7:37 moving, 11:29 a mile, 1,296 ft of climbing.
• Day two: 25.3 miles. 10 on the hotel treadmill at an average heart rate of 136, then 15.3 to Mission Beach. 4:02 moving, 9:35 a mile, 1,007 ft.
• Both: 65 miles in 11:39 of moving time.

The other 35 are happening at TriFit, one session at a time.

The cards above are Wildloop's share images. As of this week they draw the route on Wildloop's own map, rendered from its vector tiles straight to SVG, so it stays sharp at any size and the places you ran through get named rather than covered. A run with no route, like the treadmill, shows its splits instead.