9/1 - 9/7 total: ? miles

I took Monday (Labor day) off. Relaxed. The good running feedback I've had along with a cleaner diet has managed to keep me looking-upper and not as "worried" about such worklessness. Besides, I'm glad summer is done. It was fairly long, hot and uneventful. I shouldn't complain so I'll stop. Bring on the SoCal fall/winter "program!"

Tuesday school started. I wore shoes. It was the first time in three months or so that I've worn anything other than running shoes or flip-flops. I'm in culture shock for sure. Now I'm set to scramble around and teach 7 classes until December. Yikes. I'm trippin. But the first week is in the bank and I'm ready to roll.

Wednesday a little first week jitters/stress. No exercise. I'm a loser. No I'm not. Yes I am. I'm not.

Thursday I was going to sit on my ass again but read GZ's blog and got inspired. Ran. Did 1.5 hrs. of work. Solid.

Friday was another little run, etc. 1.3 hrs. of work.

Saturday was simply epic. We traveled to Malibu, CA to participate in a little annual camp-out with some friends. On Sat. morn, Jack and I went and scouted up the coast; I wanted to verify the grand potential of Sycamore Canyon and La Jolla Canyon. Sycamore looked great, but I actually bumped into a trail runner finishing a run in La Jolla Canyon. Here is one site. Here is another. I followed his advice to bypass Sycamore and run La Jolla. And he said, take the Ray Miller trail up and have a go from there. I ended-up doing 11.5 miles, climbed a little over 2000ft. But the Ray Miller trail consisted of 1000ft. the first two miles. It was simply epic. I started at about 2:30, the heat of the day settled in nicely. But having hydrated well, I didn't even make it through one water bottle of half water/half gatorade. I ran very well, strong. The climb was, well, sexy. The trail perfect. The runner I'd met mentioned that the Ray Miller was key (La Jolla in general) because no bicycles allowed. They were coming out of Sycamore. I don't have a problem with mtbikers necessarily, but I took his advice and ran with it. BTW, I will have the mtbike up there one of these days for the sheer climbing work. Perfect single track and really nice fire roads that just go steady up. The views will make you go hmmmmmm.

Probably the best trail run I've been on ever. At "the top" I was able to look back into the Point Mugu State Park towards the backside of Boney Mountain where I ran my first trail race, which was a beast.

The Malibu area is truly special. Some pure coastline which happens to be just north of a very noxious place called L.A. Point Mugu is the shit.

Sunday was some hiking with the family. 1 hr. Great stuff. Even a little trail running with my 4 1/2 year-old.

Total for the week: about 6 hours of work and one terribly key work-out. This coming week I'll be getting back to my 50ish mileage. The main focus now: consistent work with very key work-outs. I think I have a group run at Noble Canyon for next Saturday - I want to say 20 miles or so?

We'll see. . .