The Verdugo Mountains from Mt. Hollywood
I went on an amazing run over Christmas while J-A and I were in Burbank, which is just outside of L.A. in the San Fernando Valley. It's a quiet, suburb-y place – nice, but there's not much there besides a couple of big film studios. And it isn’t particularly scenic. There are palm trees – which, because I live in a much colder climate, always seem exotic to me – and orange trees and avocado trees and all that kind of stuff. But it’s mostly just flat suburbs. They’ve got a running/biking trail, but it’s concrete, and it runs down the middle of a busy boulevard – there are cars going by on both sides. Not my idea of a trail.
But here’s the thing – lining the north-east side of the valley there are mountains – the Verdugo Mountains. Now, these mountains aren’t big - but, for me, there’s just something about mountains. Every time I see one, I get this little ping of excitement in my belly – I just want to get up there. So the whole time I was in Burbank, I could hear the Verdugos calling.
So one day I thought to myself, screw it, I’m gonna run to the mountains. I didn’t look at a street map or anything, I just kinda faced northeast and picked roads by instinct. I found my way downtown, then across Interstate 5, and then, after 4k of running, I found a road that started to climb. Now, Dartmouth and Halifax are hilly – but they don't have anything even resembling a mountain. However, in Burbank, once the up started, the up didn’t stop – it just got steeper and steeper. Up and up – 1k, 2k – I went up past these amazing million-dollar homes. I crossed Bel-Aire Drive, which was this broad avenue lined with towering palm trees. I was tempted to run down it just for fun, but I wanted to go up. So up I went - 3k, 4k. I ran until the road ended at some kind of nature park. But what I wanted was a view. So I continued running on a dirt track that kept going up. After climbing 4.5k (8.5k of total running at that point), I finally ran right out onto a little plateau that overlooked the Valley.
Ka-pow!
It was awesome. I could see everything. Burbank, the Bob Hope Airport, the Valley stretching north and south, the Hollywood Hills, downtown L.A., the Pacific – it was all at my feet. To the south, I could see snow-capped mountains in the blue distance. And as I stood there, somewhere below me, church bells sounded. I’m not kidding. My heart was pumping from a climb like I’ve never done before; my body was flying on endorphins; and the view and the bells and...
What a gift. I was never more grateful for the ability to run.
After a moment of solitude and big joy, I turned my back to the view, restarted my watch, and began my descent. Now, you might think that running up a mountain must be the hard part – but let me tell you: running down was way more brutal! Running up was more difficult aerobically, for sure. It’s a lot of work dragging your own weight up against gravity, especially at speed. But the muscles involved in going up are big and powerful. Going down – well, that’s easy enough on the heart, but the muscles that are called on to keep your knees from exploding are not so big and powerful. So after 4.5km of down, my legs felt like shredded cheese. And the final 4k of flat running were no picnic. But it was so worth it. 10 miles of sheer bliss.
I got back to my brother-in-law’s place, and I was just beaming. J-A took one look at me and wondered what the heck had happened. I couldn’t stop smiling even though I could barely stand. So I went into the backyard, stretched everything out gently and then stood in the pool. It wasn’t nearly cold enough to work as an ice bath, but it was good. I just stood there in the middle of the pool smiling and watching the planes descending above the orange tree.
Man, I love running.
