DAY 3: WESTERN LOS ROBLES TRAIL

3 Miles  +350 Feet

This is by far the easiest trail that I've done so far.  Today I pretty much got to work on time, well on time for me and then left at 3:30 to beat the sun.  However, my cubical partner Josh, hid my helmet!  I didn't realize until I got to my bike that my helmet was missing.  I rode my bike to the lower parking lot and ran back inside.  No helmet at my desk, so I darted back up the other way thinking that maybe I left it in the bathroom where I changed.  Nope, ran back down the stairs and onto the production floor yelling, "Where in the hell is my helmet".  Of course, most of the ordinary workers were already gone but fortunately one of the managers spotted my helmet on Joshy's desk!  That punk is just mad because I beat him in Poker, jk...

So, I reached the trail head a bit past 4:00.  With the sun going down at 4:48, it was yet another race against the sun.  Fortunately I knew this trail would be simple.  In fact, I jogged just about all of it...

...yeah, I'll save the 5.0 mile trail (10 total miles in and out) for another time.  But as you can see, ideal running conditions.  This would be a great mountain bike trail.  The ground is just barely moist to create good grip on the tires.  It's shaded by the 5 to 10 foot shrubs that mankind must have bushwhacked many years ago.  No lose dirt or sun-dried ground makes for a bouncier cushion which saves the knees and shins.  The turns are even banked nicely so you can zoom around at full speed like at Talladega.

Not too much to see out here, but I will own this house one day; maybe.  The Los Robles Trail is situated on a foothill formation between the neighborhoods.  Beyond the next hill is the Santa Monica Mountain Range.  I will be doing a lot of my Monday thru Friday hike/runs through there.

About 1.5 miles to Potrero Road and I am ready to turn around and go back.  I didn't have time to figure out a loop trail and after yesterday's adventure, can you blame me for doing an in and out.

The most interesting part of this trek was deleted.  See that guy up there, he chased after me after I took pictures of his friends riding on a dirt bike in a neighbor hood backyard.  I caught some pretty cool shots of them jumping small hills, etc, but when they saw me taking pictures, they chased after me.  They only caught up to me because I stopped to take more pictures.  They're reasoning was, they didn't want me to show the pictures to City Hall and shut them down.  The kid is in high school and apparently competes on the weekend so the only chance he has to practice is in his backyard during the week.  Ok, so I won't publish any pictures but if you can make this guy out from behind 50 feet away...

Well, I round a few more corners and see my bike from 50 feet above.  I then run to it in under a minute, right at sundown.  The entire trip took less than 40 minutes and it only took that long because I tried to soak it in and take pictures.  Until tomorrow...

 

3 Day Summary: 10 Miles  +1850 Feet