I’ve had some kick-ass workouts this past week. Don’t know if I’ll really be ready for Wildflower but I’m making a valiant try of it. Last Wednesday? Mel and I had a really good run, 4+ miles, where we really picked up the pace on our intervals (and I was actually heard to utter “Gee, I wish I could run like this ALL the time” and, then, not so surprisingly, “Wow, wish I could’ve done this at Strawberry Fields!”).

Saturday morning I fiendishly plotted a good 6.8 mile loop (based on Google gmaps pedometer) for our long, slow run. I included a little of this, a little of that; some of the woodchip path, some asphalt (running through neighborhoods), some concrete (the Strand on the beach), some flats, some hills. We would run 6 minutes, walk 2 for our intervals. A lovely, lovely plan.

I’m sure you’ve already gathered that all did NOT go as planned.

I assured both Mel and Dave (who decided to run with us) that I did indeedy know how to get from the woodchip path to Marine Ave, which involved exiting the path and jogging over a street or two (you’re starting to see the problem, right?) to hit Marine (which does not intersect the path and rather does some weird stuff) which we could then run straight down to the beach.

Suffice to say I missed the turn off that, in my heart of hearts, I know would’ve taken us to Marine.

Not only did I miss the turn off, I took us straight to the infamous Manhattan Beach Sand Dune park, home of the 100 foot high urban sand dune. (Use this link to see a pic; scroll down a little.)

Dave braved the Sand Dune. Mel and I took the stairs and waited for Dave at the top.

We eventually made it down to the Strand and were able to continue the run as planned. My little error added a little more than 1.5 miles to our run, though, to total about 8.5 miles. (You can see my original plan at FavoriteRun.com under author StephCat.)

Sunday we all did a bike ride — I biked the Palos Verdes loop for the first time! Granted, we went the ‘easy’ direction (clockwise), but I am thrilled by how well I did for my first time. 24-25 miles (depending on whose bike computer you look at) of switchbacks, hills etc. The concensus from people who’ve done both Wildflower and bike in PV is that if you can bike PV, you can do Wildflower. I’m really, really hoping that’s the case.