Finally, a Volksmarch on the Schuylkill River Trail!

At least in Montgomery County - stop at local breweries' beer gardens along the trail, through June and July. Sounds like a blast. More here and here. Too bad they're not doing this in Berks!

Get Your Lift On: Lifting Competition, Bay Area, 13 April 2014

Tom Campitelli is holding a Strengthlifting meet, details here.

Analysis: Dick Collins Fire Trail 50M, Time vs Age

Thought I'd take a look at the numbers from what used to be Ann Trason's race in my old backyard in the East Bay hills. Until I coincidentally ran some of the still-marked trails later on the same day this year, I'd completely forgotten about this race, or rather hadn't thought "hey it's October in the East Bay hills, when's Fire Trails" which come to think of it I guess is forgetting. (Hey, sue me. I've been in another city in medical school.) I was sad not to have used the chance to stop by to see some friends, but not sad I didn't enter; had no time to train anyway. Here's a scatterplot of the results.

What those numbers above mean is that for this curve (with a decent R^2 value) male runners gain 4.3 seconds on their mile split in this race per year of age. This is a little more pessimistic than the claim that runners keep their times until their sixties, as argued by many, most recently and famously McDougall in Born to Run. More interestingly, the women were all over the place with a much worse goodness-of-fit score that predicts only a 1.7 second gain on mile split per year (below). This is the trend I'd expected ahead of time, but not to this degree! Being all over the place is emphatically a good thing because it means that race results for you ladies are much less predetermined by age than for us men, and on top of that your time increase per year is smaller. Whether this is a result of universal human biology (women innately resemble fine wine) or something to do with selection (e.g. women start racing later in life, or are more likely to interrupt racing careers with more-traumatic-to-female-physiology childbearing which can be recovered from, and so the times show that) is another question.

Government Aircraft in Low-Altitude High-Speed Risky Maneuvers Over San Diego

San Diegans: later this month the government is going to repeatedly fly big, expensive aircraft at high speeds and low altitudes in dangerous formations over your neighborhood. The government seems to have no concern for the safety of your property and family. Are you going to take this lying down?

What's more, these risky and unnecessary maneuvers are being done for defense, or for firefighting, or even as an aeronautics experiment to provide valuable data. No, these high-speed low-pass maneuvers are being done for - get this - entertainment.

Of course I'm talking about the Air Show, which fortunately was cancelled this year. Somehow that doesn't count as government wasting our money and risking our families and homes.

Want to have an air show? Great! Do it out over Imperial County somewhere. Don't risk so many private property owners' lives and homes.

Canyon Cleanup Day 2013

(Cross posted to my blog the Lucky Atheist.)

I'd been meaning to post the pictures from the Canyon Cleanup back in April. A few of us came out from SDNA (thanks everyone!) and joined some other teams of people - if I remember, Qualcomm was well-represented - but the coolest thing was that Dorothy and Sara got to take a kayak out to get the trash along the water to complete the cleanup on the other side. This is Penasquitos Creek, which a bit further downstream opens up into the marsh at Torrey Pines State Beach. Fun day! Next one is 21 September 2013.

Severe greenery was in evidence
but the cleaner-uppers were not dissuaded.

Intrepid cleaner-uppers scour the other side of the river.

The Burning Man 50k

More info here.

Creek to Coast Cleanup, Torrey Pines, Sat. Apr 27

Join us! We'll be at the Torrey Pines/Sorrento Mesa site; details here. Even if you don't sign up for that site, sign up for one of them!

The San Diego Relay: Preliminary Plan

I'm posting this for people who are interested in the stup I mean uh, fun idea we've been talking about to run the length of San Diego County, from the northern boundary until we don't have any more USA to run in. If you're not already involved and this sounds like fun (and it will be) email me at mdcblogs@gmail.com and we'll see if we can make you part of the team.


The first choice we have to make is a date. That's being hashed out offline with the folks that have confirmed their interest.

The second choice we have to make is which way we want to go: along the entire coast of San Diego County (easy logistics, boring terrain) or a little bit inland (more fun, mostly trails). (Can you tell which one I want to do?) And the very rough, approximate routes are below, subject to revision and clarification to accommodate the team's wishes. Because it's our relay and we'll run where the hell we want to. To that end, so far our choices are:

The coast+inland route: (Note, neither map can be embedded because they contain manually-drawn, non-road pieces to account for trails; links below.) This has the advantage of getting to the coast anyway by the time we're down as far as La Jolla, as well as passing directly by the Lair of Darkness(tm) in Poway. This will be a great mix of trail, mountain, open fields, and road. I vote for this one. Please note, I will personally run and drive this route before we do it. You will also note I haven't attempted to follow the actual trails on the map as yet just because it will take a lot of time. If we settle on this one I will produce a very detailed map.


The all-coast route: My only comment here is that you will note the route through the actual neighborhood of La Jolla (vs Torrey Pines) is very approximate. I leave this up to the other runners. I'm in favor of whatever route gets us through this place the fastest. We would also have to figure out what we're doing about getting from Point Loma to Coronado. Basically it's ferry (boring+cheating) vs. kayak (awesome and not cheating; we will have to solve the Coronado problem for the coast+inland route above as well.)


Please don't hesitate to ask questions - in the comments here is probably the best so everyone can see the discussion.

Oct 20 - Riparian Habitat Restoration With the US Bureau of Land Management

Last October volunteers planted coast live oaks in the drainage of a canyon in the BLM's Sycamore Canyon area, off Highway 94.  This area was hit by both the Otay Fire in '03 and the Harris Fire in '07, and the BLM needs the public's help bringing back the oak, willow, and sycamore trees that supported the wildlife in this remaining natural area.  The history is pretty cool - Rancho Jamul was used by the Kumayaay Indians for thousands of years for forage and living purposes, Spanish missionaries for grazing land (using the Kumeyaay Indians for labor), then owned by a series of private individuals, most notably Pio Pico, the last Mexican Governor of California. Prior to acquisition by DFG, the property was used for farming and grazing by the well-known Daley Family of San Diego.



Details: meet at Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve at 8:30a.m. for orientation. Wear long pants, a hat, and sturdy shoes. Bring water and a water bottle if you have one. Water and snacks will be provided. To RSVP, and for directions or for more information contact Cathy Chadwick, info@earthdiscovery.org. Be sure to let her know you heard about the event here at MDK10outside!

General Location: Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve is located in the eastern part of San Diego County between the towns of Jamul and Dulzura; Rancho Jamul can be found by following Eastbound Highway 94 (AKA Campo Road) from Spring Valley.

Directions: Directions from Downtown San Diego are as follows: I-5 south to I-94 east, follow Highway 94 east through the town of Jamul and look for a Rancho Jamul sign immediately following the Rural Fire Station. After approximately two miles, you will find the entrance on the south/west side of Highway 94.

No Algodones Dunes Marathon: Or, the Rare Triumph of Common Sense

After a scouting trip to the desert, I decided to take a pass on my brilliant idea of running the Algodones Dunes from I-8 to 78.


Running this for 22 miles? No thank you sir.
That's actually one on of my worse ideas, which is saying something.
Even driving it like these guys would suck.
As if to emphasize the point that this is a blighted land, while we were passing through nearby Brawley on the way to the Blythe Intaglios, the Earth delivered up some nice earthquakes.  The timing couldn't have been better.  I had to put down the coffee I was preparing and ran out of the convenience store.  I went back in to finish it and another one hit. 

But a bad idea that I still think is good is the San Diego coastal relay! 78 miles, 10 runners. Who's in? Main problem to solve, running along the shipyards and whatnot along the east side of San Diego Bay would be much less pleasant than running along the Silver Strand, but how to cross over from OB/Point Loma to Coronado - add a kayak leg?


View Larger Map

The Good and Bad of San Diego, 28 April 2012

The good: the Creek to Bay Clean-up drew a real crowd, especially down along the river in Fashion Valley where it was sorely needed. Among the things I or my neighboring cleaner-uppers pulled out: tennis balls, spray bottles, shoes, shopping carts, lots of styrofoam (that's a real pain) and, of all things, a stroller. By noon at the end of the day the river looked great. If you weren't there, how about next year? Or how about going to an event sooner than that? Here's the website.

The bad: had a great run afterwards along the coast from Solana Beach to La Jolla; beautiful warm day here in San Diego. Del Mar runners, are the water fountains at the community center always just kind of dripping? Seems like if you're going to have water fountains, can't Del Mar City Council make sure they have enough pressure so they're not a public health hazard? I certainly appreciate that they're there, but as they were today, they're barely useable.

San Diego Creek to Bay Clean-up, Saturday 28 April (tomorrow!)

Got a free Saturday morning? How about meet some people who care about the canyons and beaches and parks of San Diego? The Creek to Bay Cleanup is tomorrow and has sites all over San Diego. The one last year was a blast. Learn more here.

Support This Awesome Team in The Relay

The Relay is a 200 mile running race where teams of 12 relay-run from Calistoga at the north end of Napa Valley, all the way to Santa Cruz. (For you East Coast types, that's running from New York to Baltimore.) It's every bit as fun as it sounds but you shouldn't plan on getting anything done that weekend...and that weekend is 5-6 May. Coming right up! Even better, the event raises money for organ donation, and here's how you can help: go to the website for the relay team with the best name, ...And You Shall Know Us By the Trail of Drugs, and help out one of the runners, Mathew Lomas. (In the interest of full disclosure, Matt is awesome, but then again so is this cause). Link is here.

Rain and Fog: NorCal in March

It doesn't rain all winter, and then right after I come back up from San Diego to the Bay, the normal winter weather returns. The weather is a d*ck. This hasn't stopped me from the usual ridge trail in Tilden (whatever that thing is called) and Tenessee Valley and Muir Beach, and Annadel State Park today. (Annadel State Park, which is still on the closure list.) Muir Beach was particularly fun. Every trail was a river and the little creek that flows out into the ocean was a full-on torrent.



Tilden in the fog. World, please come back when I get back to the trailhead. From schaufensterbabe.blogspot.com.

I should add that both my right upper IT band and now my right ankle are bothering me. But hey. When you have a sudden increase in mileage that leads to injury, you know what the treatment is? More mileage!

This training regimen is known as the reverse taper. The Oakland Marathon is this coming weekend, and once again, I'm doing the training regimen of champions.

NorCal Round-up

1) Registered for the Oakland Running Festival? Several races on 25 March, check it out here.

2) I finally went and saw my albino redwood, in Henry Cowell State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The albinism is of course the result of a low or near-zero cholorplast count, which means the trees only survive by getting nutrients from the root systems of their non-albino clone brethren. They still can't grow very tall. Interestingly, unlike the "solid" albino below, the one I saw at Henry Cowell had albino branches, or even some branches that weren't all albino, and even some twigs where not all the needles on the same twig were albino! This being the case, I was trying to be a tree pathologist and diagnose the process going on in the plant to produce this non-continuous pattern. It seems more likely that all parts of the plant had chloroplasts as they were growing, but that early in the growth of the branches they die for some reason. Cytoskeleton problem maybe?


From Arleen Olson Photography.

3) Ventana Wilderness, where the southernmost redwoods are, remains outstanding. I decided to play a game and see if there were flowers of every color of the rainbow on the exposed parts of the trail, and "won" in the first mile (plus some nice big white-purple daturas and some pink I don't even know, but the shore was purty.) In this dry winter, it's drawn crowds like I've never seen, particarly on Pine Ridge Trail on the way to Sykes Hot Springs. This is partly owing to morons like me who go around shouting how awesome Ventana is. But once you go there you really can't help it.


One of those exposed sections of Pine Ridge. From xasauantoday.

4) Instead of trying to grow redwoods from seed, I brought back a branch (one that had already been broken off a tree and was laying on the trail) to see if I can clone one that way.

5) Over 50% done putting together clickable maps for Nobody Hikes in LA. Driving through Whittier or Irvine and want to know where to find a trail? This is for you! Note: as I write this post, all the hikes are not yet included on here since I'm not finished, although by the time you read this post they may be.


View Master Map - Nobody Hikes in LA in a larger map

Councilwoman Lightner's Office Responds RE Air Show

If you live in UTC, in 24 hours you won't need this reminder, but the Miramar Air Show starts tomorrow, and goes until Sunday. They're already doing practice runs. I loved watching these as a kid, when my dad (who was a Naval officer) took me to an airstrip to watch the planes - and that's key - it was at an airstrip, not over top of our houses - and he wouldn't have been happy if it was. Along with many other people, I don't love having them fly fast and at low altitude all day long over my house. The government never bothered to ask our consent for this. It would seem important to do so, after two deadly air show crashes, not to mention one deadly non-air show crash right here in Rose Canyon that took an entire family.

I wrote to Mayor Sanders (who hasn't responded) and to Councilmember Lightner, whose office did respond. They've asked the base officials to address the events of the last couple weeks as they pertain to us here in San Diego. I also just now emailed the University City Community Association to find out if this discussion is ongoing; I'm probably not the first person who's had these concerns.

Moving the Miramar Air Show inland to the desert would be a huge improvement, not just in safety and noise. Imagine the tailgating! Merchants able to set up in one place and sell food! Camping over night and beer! Best of all, no risk to non-consenting property owners. Let's not wait for a tragedy to occur to go through the moral motions. Let's do something now.

2 Days, 2 Airshow Crashes, Here Comes Miramar Air Show

[Note: On Facebook? Look for "Move the san Diego Air Show Way Inland".]

Miramar Air Show is next month. There's no problem with an air show. What there is a problem with is the government placing risks on the people that live nearby without their consent. Those risks are real. A plane crashed next to Rose Canyon three years ago, killing four on the ground - not during the airshow, but it shows that it can happen.

Why not move the airshow out to the desert? Imagine the opportunity for merchants to set up in one central spot that we don't have when it's done over San Diego. Then you could tailgate out there and make a day of it, drink beer, drive around off-road if you want, go home at the end of the day or camp out. It would be a great time. Win-win for everyone!

Join the group on Facebook, and write the Mayor and your Councilmember.

Come Down to the W on Saturday Night

This Saturday night the 13th, come down to the W - have a few drinks and support a good cause.

50% of the proceeds go to the Free Clinic that UCSD Med School runs, and the other 50% go to Pencils of Promise. Only *$10* online! Get your tickets here. Doors at 9.

National Public Lands Day - 25 September

Have you found a place to volunteer yet? Have a park or forest you like and want to help keep it in good shape for the community and the next generation? Sign up at the National Public Lands Day website. I haven't decided yet where I'm volunteering, but there are 12 within 100 miles of San Diego.

Statewide Earthquake Drill to be Held 21 October

More information here. I'll go out on a limb and say it might actually be fun, plus then people can't keep muttering "Sure they can do public earthquake drills in Japan but that would never work in the U.S."