Leg 4 - Spooner Summit to Kingsbury Grade

Got that sweet runner's high a couple of times today, when your legs are churning away, you're bouncing over rocks and roots, and it feels like running is what you were designed to do. Like it would feel weird to stop running. Anyway - it was a pretty good day.

Started out from home a little after 6, and got on the trail at 7:05. (The next few legs are going to have loooong drive/shuttle times.)


Started out uphill again (recurring theme) for the first five miles. There were some places where I could run, so I did, for short spurts. Here's an example of one of those (sorry it's kind of bouncy...)


Had a few views of Tahoe through the trees here, this is one:


Then I hit the high point of the day's section, and thought it was going to be flat and downhill from there on out. Here's the flat section:


And a good panorama from near there:


So it ended up being a little more uphill than I had expected, back to the trailhead. Ran what I could and walked a bit. Saw a few people as I got near the trailhead, and a bunch more getting ready to start out.


I wanted to connect to the next trailhead (so noone can say I didn't do the WHOLE thing) so had a 3.4 mile on-road slog to the next trailhead. That, too, was much more uphill that I expected. Ends up, the next trailhead i sright underneath one of the Heavenly lifts.


Here's me there, just for documentation's sake...


Ah, a good equipment addition this time: I have seen people on the trail and a races wearing these trail running gaiters, and wanted to get a pair, but the person who makes them only does them in wild colors. So, I decided to make some myself. Got some fabric (4-way stretch lycra) and whipped some up. They worked great! If I had to make another pair, I would adjust the dimensions a little, but these did their job just fine. No more emptying my shoes twice per run!


Numbers:
Trail distance: 15.6 mi
Time on trail:3:10
Time running: 1:40

Third Leg - Tahoe Meadows to Spooner Summit

Longest day yet; 23 point something miles. Overall downhill, although there were a couple of big uphill sections. Had company again today, too - Chris picked me up at about 6:30 and we drove to the Mt. Rose Meadows (Tahoe Meadows) Trailhead.


Started out running - no uphill to start out this time. (Well, a little, but we ran through it.) In fact, we ran for about the firs ten miles - an hour and a half of running! It was nice to knock off so much of it early. Along the way, we had a few nice lake views like this, but most of the time were in the trees.



(Sorry, my panorama software that worked so well last time is giving me problems all of a sudden...)

And had to pause for some heroic tahoe shots like this:


Then we had a big uphill that we hiked, a flat section that we ran, and another big uphill that we had to hike most of. Started running near the top of the second big uphill - here's Chris taking off:


For quite a while now, we had amazing views of Marlette Lake and Lake Tahoe - again, these were planned as a panorama, but - well, technical difficulties...



That was about the highest point of the day; from there it was a 6-mile mostly downhill to Spooner Summit. Pretty fun to just let it out on the downhill at that point, but my legs were definitely feeling it toward the end...


Numbers:
Trail distance - 19.5 miles
Time on trail: 4:20
Time moving: 4:10
Time running: 3:00