Mission to Sunol: Kickoff C2M training

Mission to Sunol run had been on cards for a long time, finally got to do this hilly and pretty course. Initially Padma, Vinod and myself were planning to do Double Mission peak or Triple, but Vinod couldn't join due to work.

Me and Padma got started with our run at 8am, enjoying a beautiful hilly course through dense fog. Fog was so intense I could hardly see few feet, moreover some parts of the initial course was not familiar so I was hunting for the trail and making sure I am on Horse Heaven Trail leading to top. Unfortunately the beautiful views from summit were missing during 1st time, but we enjoyed the perfect running weather and continued on to Ohlone wilderness trail a 5 mile downhill to Sunol regional park head quarters. At ranger office we had plans to refill and take a break.

Interesting Sunol ranger office stocks up 10Gallon water containers for though-hikers and backpackers, It is a very convenient service for the nature lovers.

3hr 5 minutes into our run, we turned back to MP summit, surprisingly running up in parts felt really good, I was at summit in 1:15mins, I decide use the extra time to do repeats on the last 500ft section, which worked out great. Soon padma joined at summit and we headed to Stanford Ave start taking a shorter (steeper) trail.









elevation profile Mission peak to Sunol(and back)

Overall my goal for this run was to do a run with atleast 7000ft of elevation gain and it was achieved.

According to C2M course 100M gains about 27000ft of elevation gain so going fwd my approach towards training would be to do runs of similar gradient. Atleast try and do couple of 10000ft + runs and atleast one 13000-14000ft run.

Some possible courses going fwd
i) Mission - Sunol and back 18 miles 6000ft (+ 1 MP repeat) time required 5hrs
ii) Mission - Rose Peak and back 38 miles 10000ft (+ 2 MP repeat) time required 9-10hr
iii) Quad MP 24 miles 8800 ft (time required 8hrs)
iv) Quad PG&E 32 miles 8400ft (time required 8-9hrs)