Hill running crash course at Quicksilver

Looking up one of the many hills
at Alamaden Quicksilver Park

As I try to find ways to break routine in my running, Sunday I ran the hills of San Jose's Almaden Quicksilver Park for the first time in over a year.  There is no flat at Quicksilver. You're either running up a hill or running down one. No two footsteps are the same and your legs are constantly dealing with the force of gravity in all sorts of new directions not normally experienced on flat residential streets. That's why trail running over terrain like Quicksilver is a great way to develop strength and balance. I also noticed imbalances and slight flaws in my running form over the hills I'll be working on over the next few weeks to correct.

I'm going to need good hill fitness since I've signed up for the Healdsburg Wine Country Half-Marathon this October 29th and the course has a couple good sized hills on it: A tough 140 foot climb to start the first 0.6 miles of the race and a steep, 160 foot climb between the 8.6 and 9.6 mile marks that will probably make or break the race. So you'll probably see more of me on the Quicksilver trails and doing hill repeats on some of the highway overpasses in and around my hometown of Campbell.

Hills are tough taxing and tedious. They also make you a better runner.

Running the Trails of Almaden Quicksilver to Get Ready for a Couple Races

Trail running is great on multiple levels. Running over uneven ground builds a strength, resiliency and balance that can't be developed on the roads. Working up and down the hills really gets the heart rate up without the pounding and monotony of running laps around the track.  No wonder hill running has long been considered "speed work in disguise".  Of course, the views our awesome, especially at the top of the hills where they've been earned.

So I've been hitting the trails of my favorite place for trail running, Almaden Quicksilver Park to get ready for a couple of races coming up.  In a little over a week, I'll be part of the mob surging through the streets of Santa Cruz for Wharf to Wharf, a six miler over a few rolling hills that starts at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and finishes at the Capitola Wharf.  Then in early August is the Dammit Run in Los Gatos.  The Dammit starts on the Los Gatos High School track before hitting the gravel Los Gatos Creek trail. Than the race gets even more interesting as runs up Lexington Dam diagonally before encountering the real hill of the course on the Los Gatos trail system.  It's then a mostly down hill roller coaster of a trail run before a short stint on the Los Gatos streets and a finish back on the Los Gatos High School Track.

I've taken the family on a number of walks in Quicksilver through the years, but it's been six years since I've been running its trails on a regular basis.  It feels good to be back.