bem’s blog

This morning, I ran up a trail that I hadn't explored before, and I discovered the Walnut Creek Open Space. The really neat part about it is that it's up in the hills, so there are plenty of spots for a nice view of the valley. In some ways it's a shame that the sun comes up so late these days, because it's really hard to take nice pictures without a tripod with the light that I have when running. (And it helps that I managed to forget to try and take a few at a higher ISO than 80. =)

When I finished my run this morning, I noticed that the sun was shining
directly down Sunnyvale Ave, so I stopped and took a couple of pictures.
I couldn't decide which one of these two were the best, so I'm posting
both of them.

On my run this morning, I ran back to the hill I had previously found a nice view of Mt. Diablo. This time, I had my camera, so I was able to take some non-cameraphone shots. The sun wasn't quite over the mountain yet, and it was a bit chilly, so we have Mt. Diablo rising out of the fog in the valley. I tried to take a shot of the moon, which was in the western sky, but I failed to get a decent picture of that.

I ran the Banana Chase 5k yesterday, and I did much much better than I would have expected. I finished in 24:01 - that's a 7:45 minute mile average. And I must say that it was better organized than any of the other races I've been to: RhodyCo really puts on a good event, and all of their events are for a good cause. I'd be doing the Bridge to Bridge 12k, but I'm going to be out of town that weekend.

The official pictures haven't been posted yet, but Mara took a picture of me coming into the finish. (And completely losing all my form in my sprint to the end.) Yeah, it's a bit blurry. That's 'cuz I'm so speedy. ;)

And you know you want to do it with me! It'll be fun, and it's totally chill and
non-competitive, and it's only $10! Any takers?

Dear internets, today I found a park on my morning run. And not just any park, a park with a view. And while I did run with Emma, I forgot to put my real camera in her stroller before we left, so we'll just have to do with a cameraphone picture, yet again.

When I went for my run yesterday, I took Emma with me, and I decided to run south on the Iron Horse trail, since I had crossed it in my morning runs, but I hadn't taken it anywhere. I was pleasantly surprised to find not one, but two bridges not too far down the trail. One of them goes over Ygnacio Valley Road, and other other one is right after it and goes over a canal of some sort. I of course had to take pictures, and while I have found that getting a nice level picture on my phone is hard, at least they do get the point across. (I need to get some sort of small runners pack to carry my camera and some water when I go running)

I took a picture of Miss Emma when I got home. Running is exhausting for her! ;)

It's somewhat fortunate that I didn't get around to posting this yesterday. On my morning run today, I decided to run north on the Iron Horse trail, and I found another bridge. This one was over a rather large canal right by Monument Blvd.

So that's my running and bridge adventures for the last two days.

On my morning run, I have discovered that Heather Farm is surprisingly close to my new house. For reference, my wife and I got married here. So I had to take a little detour.

My friend/coworker just told me about the Banana Chase 5k, which is happening on September 14th. It sounds like a lot of fun: there are people dressed in Bananas running the course, and you have to outrun as many as you can. Anyone wanna join in?

Also, I'm running the Golden Gate Park 10k in October, and if anyone wants to join me, register and drop me a line.

It looks like I did it in 54:53, and came in 36th in my age group (19-29). I'm pleasintly surprised.