Big Seki Loop Run

Big Seki is a big loop of about 150 miles which can be done in 2 segments. Details of both loops are well captured here.

North and South

North loop is here

South loop is here

Friends of Ridge Trail

We (Avinash Jain, Kaushik Sunder, Kiran Krishnamurthy and Anil Rao) did circumnavigation of Bay Area Ridge Trail in 2020-2021 as part of Together Relay Organised by Pacific Coast Trail Runs.  It is currently a network of semi-continuously loop of 400 miles around bay area. 

Since the time we did this loop, we were fascinated by the vast network of Trail system in San Francisco bay area and would like to help with the mission of RidgeTrail.org of building a continuous loop of 550 miles in next 20 years. In this mission we would like to organise Trail Running/Hiking events to raise funds for the RidgeTrail organisation. 

                            Friends of Ridge Trail (Avinash Jain, Kaushik Sunder, 
                                       Kiran Krishnamurthy and Anil Rao)

Short Bio:

Avinash Jain

A trail running enthusiast with avid interest in backpacking and hiking the mountains.

Kaushik Sunder

Ultra endurance athlete 🏃

Audio Research Scientist🔬

Musician👨‍🎤

Kiran Krishnamurthy

I am a software engineer living in the Bay Area since '13 and the thing I loved about the place, apart from the weather, were the trails here. When we moved in here, spent the weekends hiking various trails in the area with my family and then got into trail running since '16. I am part of a local running club here and involved in trail maintenance and volunteering at races and running events. Circumnavigating BART and covering ~390 miles around the Bay Area has been an amazing and a very unique experience for us.

Anil Rao

I am a software engineer in Bay Area, I have been running since 2002, been a long time Ultrarunner as well. I am am also a Race Director of Ruth Anderson Ultra in San Francisco. I like to volunteer for Trail maintenance and Trail running events.

North Main Trail Run: 25K and 50K run

We will run following 2 sections of Bay Area Ridge Trail in North Bay

1. Samuel P. Taylor State Park to White Hill Open Space: 10.5 miles

https://ridgetrail.org/geronimo-ridge-samuel-p-taylor-state-park-to-gary-giacomini-and-white-hill-open-space-preserves/

2.  White Hill/Loma Alta Open Space to Lucas Valley Open Space: 4 miles

https://ridgetrail.org/white-hillloma-alta-preserves-to-lucas-valley-road/

25K :

It is a point to point run. Starting at Samuel P Taylor Park and ending at White Hill/Loma Alta OSP

50k:

It is out and back, start and end at Samuel P Taylor Park

Across the years: 72hour foot race

 Across The Years 72hr Footrace

This was my first ATY and I am glad I could fit this in 2019. This is one of the iconic timed events , it was on my horizon for past decade and finally 2019-2020 was the right time for that. Thanks to family's support as usual.

Event details:
https://www.aravaiparunning.com/across-the-years/

I had a goal of crossing 200 miles in 3 days, which seemed possible, I got in touch with Karen Bonnet who had done this several times infact she got a 1000 mile jacket this year for crossing 1000 miles over several events in the past decade. Karen offered me some great tips and it all gave me real good idea on what to expect.

my goal was to run
day 1: 85 miles
day 2: 65 miles
day 3: 50-55 miles

with 2-3 hr sleep each day. But things turned up way different than my plans.

Day 1:
Things always look good for day 1 , got in zone and started cranking steady miles, I was mostly running with Karen for 1st 50 miles she was in 48hr event and did 110 miles , including few biking miles as well. Incredible tenacity. I think ended up running 1st 50 miles more than I should have, I was little too anxious to get to 1st 100 and have some buffer for last 2 days to achieve 100 miles.

finished 1st 52 miles with Karen in 11 hrs, she had plans of running remaining 48 2nd day so went home 1st night

I took a small break to refresh and refuel, I wanted to keep going until 3 before taking a short nap. night miles were v slow started sleep walking quite a bit, had multiple mocca's 1st night I got to about 70ish and decided to sleep at 3:30 for 2.5hrs, got up at 6 and got few more miles to make it to 81 for day 1

Day 2:
many had told day 2 is kind of the tougher than day 3, which I soon realized, took a long time to get in zone, I was zombie even during day, took a short nap at 11, which helped, I focussed on getting to 100, finally made it to 100 in 31hrs, things were looking better for sometime until my right knee started acting up, luckily I had packed 2 knee braces and 1 ASO ankle brace, I havnt used for any of my races in past, ended up putting knee brace and it helped, but my walking was much zombier still, had too many AS break as well even day time felt zombie-ish, I was waiting to get done with Day 2 and move on to day 3. finally decided to call it a day at 11 and dozed off for 4 hrs, needed that sleep, I wasnt making much progress anyways. I got up at 3am, got ready and started looping again.

Day 3:
All this while main aid station was running very well with constant affair of real good food, breakfast burritos, pastas, pizzas baked stuff at various points, we were spoilt v well. This is a truly a great event, folks who love timed races no need to look any further. All the faculties of the races are v well organized. 5 star event management IMO

Started day early and got to 122 by 9am, making my day 2 miles to a measly 41 miles.

But day 3 felt great, I was running more, even walks were much smoother and felt lot better, I started chugging along well, still I had hopes of getting close 190-200, with few mini goals here and there, made good progress and got to 145 by 6pm. At this point I decided to take a short break to drain my legs . after a short break I realized my ankle was swollen and soleus area was badly blistered on right leg. I couldnt put my feet inside the shoes. headed to medical tent and got some bandages, ice for the ankle and knees. This break turned out to be a big one, overall it was 90 minutes downtime, precious day time lost, I went to my tent put on my ASO wraps for better ankle support, my left knee started hurting now, so put on knee braces as well. After few more v slow laps, with my knees and ankle pretty beaten up, I decided to take a break, ice up and get back. But I was hardly moving. I decided to take a nap till 11:30, one of the things I wanted to accomplish was to do a lap in 2019 and 2020, so at 11:30 started my 148th lap and made just in time for NY eve celebrations at the Race central!! It was quite a fun event to be celebrating in middle of a Ultra event.

at 12:02 we started a community lap, soon after that there was wedding of Tracy and Sally 2 ultrarunning veterans. After a short break tried to do few more laps.. but I could barely walk I had crossed 150 by then and didnt see 200 miles in the horizon, I decided better let my knees recover than slough through, I was about to end my race at 1 am, but decided not to incase my pain and swelling subsides.

After a regular nap on 3rd night :), got up at 7:30 had some food started looping few more laps to end the event at 9am. got about 31 miles for day 3

Things fell off the track pretty quickly after 6pm on day 3, what looked like a solid 15 hr of work ahead of me and possibly another 40-45 miles, it came crashing down soon.

Overall It was a good 1st try at this format, I loved the race, weather held up v well, it was chillier in the night but with sufficient layers it was great weather. Organization couldnt have been any better. Lot of Veterans out there still working on their 6Days and 10 Ddays event.

Great to run with Karen for most of day 1 and few laps on day 2. Her suggestions for the race were very valuable. She is shaping up very well for her Arizona Ultraman in March!!

I will surely get back for this one sometime in future.