The Club at Morgan Hill

Since The Finish Line is having some sort of a fun run tonight and I needed a more serious workout, I decided to get some easy hill running in.  I decided to try running to the Club at Morgan Hill.  It is a golf course on the side of a mountain with some houses there as well.  It offers amazing views of downtown Easton.

I looked at some topo maps and decided I could park at Heil Park in Easton.  It is a little league baseball and football field.  I scouted out the route and was a little worried about the shoulder width on Morgan Hill Road and the fact that there was quite a bit of traffic and some blind spots as well.  None of it turned out to be a problem though.

I started off mid morning.  It was comfortable out.  The first mile is mostly flat or downhill.  That made it good to get into rhythm.  Right as I hit the mile mark, the climb really began (just over Route 78).  Climbing to Clubhouse Road wasn't too bad.  The road switchbacks so that it isn't too steep.  The one sharp blind turn was a little steep, but it was brief.  Right before turning onto Clubhouse Road, it is pretty steep too, but again only for a short stretch.

The start of Clubhouse Road allows for a recovery.  The run isn't as straight up and down as South Mountain.  There is more rolling hills and more opportunity for recovery.  I pushed a bit harder once I hit the final uphill before the turnaround.  The top by the clubhouse over 700 feet in elevation.

Of course after that I was able to cruise downhill and recover.  I didn't realize how much uphill was still left as I exited the neighborhood on the way back.  Of course it always looks worse than it actually is.  One nice thing about this run and South Mountain is that the road curves so you never actually see the top.  If it went straight up, it might seem overwhelming.

I zipped back down Morgan Hill Road.  I had a little bit of a close call with a car near the bottom.  It was coming around a turn and the gravel shoulder was broken.  I had to hop through some grass.  It wasn't too bad though and overall there was plenty of room to run alongside the road.

Finally as I headed back towards Heil Park (my starting point), I started to feel it a little.  There was another short climb and it took a little out of me.  I pushed though and it still wasn't that bad.  My IT band had hurt a little earlier in the run, but even it held up there.  Although sweaty, I still finished feeling pretty fresh.

I certainly wouldn't go as far as to say the run was easy, but it wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be.  It is still good practice for Berwick.  Now that I'm in good hill shape, I guess the next step is to work on getting up these hills faster and really pushing myself.  That will get me to where I need to be on Thanksgiving Day (race day).  I'm hoping my pace will be under 7 minutes then.  I have a long way to go before that can happen though.

Tomorrow, I'm off.  The rest will be good.  On Thursday, I have a tempo run scheduled, but also our first Roadrunners group run.  I think I'll try to do both.  Maybe I'll go with the ice bath after the AM run.  I feel strong now and I like I can handle more of a workload, so maybe a double day won't hurt.  If I see that it starts to, I'll just have to adjust my schedule to work with the group runs.

5 miles - 43:27 (8:42 pace)