Since I did so well at the Capitola Half Marathon, I decided to achieve my goal of running my first\u00a0trail event sooner rather than later. I chose the Nisene Marks Half Marathon (NMHM) because it’s a small event (only about 300 runners) and I’ve never been in that park.<\/p>\n
I didn’t have much time to train for hill\/trail running, and probably over-did it because I now have an issue with my right knee. So that kind of sucks. I may have to see a doctor about it, but I don’t think it will affect my plans to run the Portland Marathon with TNT in October.<\/p>\n
In order to get used to running up and down hills, I ran a few times at St. Joseph’s Hill in Los Gatos. It’s a good workout\u00a0and I know the trails well, so I didn’t have a problem running by myself. It did bring back memories of last year, when I got really dehydrated running this route in preparation for last year’s NMHM. I ended up going to urgent care because I couldn’t get my \u00a0heart rate below 120 bpm even an hour after the run! Well, I checked out normal, so they told me it must’ve been dehydration.<\/p>\n
This time, when I trained in the heat, I made sure to drink a lot and take a lot of electrolyte capsules (I never put sports drink in my hydration backpack due to the fact that it’s hard to clean and I don’t want mold and bacteria to grow in there).<\/p>\n
Here is the second of two trail runs prior to NMHM:<\/p>\n