Inspiration Point (Inspiring views and cow patties)

(Thanks to my teammate Gina for the pictures - she is the person standing with the cow!)

This weekend our team went to Inspiration Point in Orinda for a 10+ mile run. Inspiration Point offers beautiful views as do all of our trail runs this season and consisted of an out and back run approx 4 miles paved, 1+ mile trail and then back again. The original course had planned for us to run more than less mileage on the actual dirt trails, but with the rain we have had, it was just too muddy. So we improvised.....

In addition to the beautiful scenery of Inspiration Point, we also got the opportunity to be up close and personal with the cows. They are big, friendly and for the most part, just look at you as you run by seemingly saying to themselves "What is your deal, human?" But the most impressive of all things was the "Cow Patties". I guess I had never thought about why they are called this, but now I clearly know. They truly are patties and big ones! Clearly we could manuever around them on the paved trail, but once off the paved trail, it became a little hard to tell the mud from the cow, if you know what I mean. Let's just say that I washed my shoes off thoroughly after this run.

All in all, I ended up actually running close to 13 miles instead of the 10+ that the team did. This was because I helped mark the trails and I ran up and down this one hill about 4 times to ensure that no one missed a turn off on the trail. I had fun and enjoyed every minute of the run (well, except for the part where I got so hungry that all I could do was think about eating a hamburger - sorry COWS!)

Sunday I ran an easy 6 miles at Lake Chabot with my friend Kristine and it was good to catch up and talk with her with no interruptions from our little kids. We enjoyed our run and talks!