Couch To Diablo: April 3rd, 2021

On the adventure to Diablo

Felt like we were Lord of the Rings 

We (Shaun, Ram, and myself) have always joked about running from Ram's house in the east bay hills to the peak of Mt. Diablo and back.  The route is about 60 miles long and has almost 16,000 feet of climbing!  Well, since Ram is in the middle of training for Western States 100 we decided to give it a shot.  The only issue for me was this run is only three weeks after we did the Fatass MUC 50 miler.  I was feeling mostly recovered but not exactly 100%.  The plan was to start at 4:00 AM from Ram's house.  We decided it would be a good idea to drop my car off at Hap Magee park with supplies for a mobile aid station.  This would be about 17 miles into our day.  This also meant that I had to leave my apartment at 2:45 AM to meet Ram at the park around 3:30 AM.  Oooph!  That is an early morning and my alarm clock was yelling at me after only three hours of sleep at best.  I got ready and met up with Ram.  We were able to get started at 4:00 AM like we planned and we had a few hours in the dark traversing some technical trails in the East Bay regional parks.  We did a lot of climbing leading up to Las Trampas and there may or may not of been a near miss with some angry cows.

Looking to Mt. Diablo in the distance

Having fun on our journey

Shaun did sprain his ankle as we were navigating through the cow herd in the middle of our route.  The weather was not bad until we got to the top of some peaks in Las Trampas where it was cold and the wind was blowing with a vengeance.  We quickly descended down into the valley in order to escape the winds and cold.  After some more climbing in Las Trampas we navigated our way to Hap Magee and we were happy to see the mobile aid station.  I think we were all feeling a little worn down at this point as it took a lot longer than anticipated to reach this juncture.  We were able to refuel and stock up on supplies for the next leg of our journey which is climbing up to Mt. Diablo's Peak and coming back down.  We would be back at the mobile aid station around mile 43.  The sun started blazing at this point and we slowly maneuvered up the trails of Diablo.  The strain of our day, the heat, and the longer than anticipated journey had really taken a toll on Shaun and myself.  Ram was moving well but Shaun and I were toast.  We decided half way up Diablo that when we make it back to the car at mile 43 we would probably call it a day.  If not, we would be out way past dark and wouldn't finish until 11:00 or 12:00 at night.  

View from Diablo

Looking at Eagle Peak

The thought of finishing that late for just a training run seemed miserable.  I was also considering that in just three short weeks we would be running the Canyons 100K so I didn't want to be too beat up for that.  Anyway since the decision was pretty much made that we would DNF couch to Diablo we decided to add in one of the harder Diablo climbs to make up for the missed mileage.  We went up mother's trail which is very steep and such a grind.  I felt like we definitely paid our dues getting up to the Diablo summit. Then we had about 10 miles of mostly downhill to get back to the car.  The word "spent" took on a whole new meaning by the time we reached the car.  Truthfully I was really happy that we were not going to traverse the last 17 miles of technical and steep east bay trails all the way back to Ram's house.  Then we would of had to drive all the way back to Hap Magee to get my car.  So really it worked out to do the 43 miles and call it a day.  Make no mistake, this was a very difficult training run.  It is a bit mentally defeating that we didn't finish but it was a judgement call and sometimes you have to know when to fold em.  I am looking forward to running Canyons 100K in a few weeks!