Drips, Drops, and Quad Dipsea Prep

From a leaky shower and stormy weather to family moments and trail lessons, this week.

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Moments (Nov 18-24)

Shower SOS Saturday: a weak trickle. Sunday night: a relentless drip keeping me awake. Enter my dad, the fixer-extraordinaire, who saved the day again.

Student of the Month? Feris was nominated by her band teacher! She’s loving the clarinet and has a winter concert next month. Her teacher even asked why she didn’t audition for a solo.

2025 Summer Countdown Lea’s already counting down to summer and planning an HK reunion. She’s also building her glass jar collection—perfect for pothos propagation when the weather warms up.

Gaming the Lunch System Jero, in all his growing-boy glory, has been scoring three school lunches a day. His secret? Borrowing lunch codes from classmates.

Battery Blues Maricar’s car battery died. My dad swooped in (again) for a jumpstart, and I arrived to find an empty parking lot. Classic.

Rainy Realizations Cracked windshield wipers and rain don’t mix. Pro tip: wipers are sold individually, and O’Reilly will even install them for you.

Leaf Logic Our tree-lined street? Beautiful—until 70% of the leaves ended up in our driveway. The green bin won’t cut it for weeks.

Atmospheric River The long-awaited rain finally arrived on Friday—mild, thankfully. Jero and Lea weren’t so lucky, getting soaked on their bike ride home.

Where in the World? “Indian Police?” Feris asked. Turns out she meant Indianapolis. We pulled out the map and dove into the US of A. Other curiosities from her readings: Florida, Maine, and Michigan. Road trip anyone?

On the Move

Run With Me on Strava - 67.34 mi, 4,081 ft (Year: 2,689 mi, 216,640 ft)

Rest Days? Who Am I? I don’t usually take rest days, but this week, I took two. Why? Wednesday’s run was an out-and-back to Diablo Middle School’s track. At the turnaround, my ankle started hurting, forcing me into a walk. At 20-minute miles, it was going to take me 90 minutes to get home. Brutal. This is a lingering “injury” from my peak mileage week.

Chill Miles Thursday and Friday were easy 5K walks. The first was around the park, but boredom got the better of me, and I ended up jogging. Classic.

Bounce Back Saturday was a test jog to see how the ankle felt. What started as “easy” turned into a dozen miles. No pain. Relief.

Two Big Runs When we decided to move back, I circled two races:

1. San Francisco Marathon (July) – We even cut our NZ trip short for it.

2. Quad Dipsea (November) – A “barely ultra” with 9,200 feet of climbing and descending across 28 miles.

The latter is in a few days.

Trail Recon It’s been over six years since I’ve run the Dipsea trail, so a recce was in order. The plan: park in Mill Valley, let the family do an out-and-back to the halfway point, while I tackled the full route.

Lessons from the Trail

• Pack Light: Sweat was real. The less weight, the better on climbs and descents.

• Find a Climbing Groove: Push too hard, and the legs pay for it later. It’s an ultra—pace matters.

• Descend Smarter: Flying downhill is fun, but it takes a toll.

• Steps Matter: Take stairs down, one at a time. Two might feel faster, but it’s leg destruction.

• Hydrate and Fuel: The trail is gorgeous—easy to forget the essentials.

Haha. There is a theme. Save the legs.

Excited for Saturday The climbs were humbling, but I’m feeling good. Stretch goal: sub-5 hours. Realistically? Probably 5:15–5:30. No matter what, it’s going to be an adventure. As a benchmark, my PR on the double dipsea is a 2:30 and the last time I raced it, it took me over 3 hours. Sub 5 is definitely a stretch.