Is Malibu Canyon 25K a hilly course????

[evie]

Hello everyone,
I live in St. Louis and am moving home to L.A. in October. I am running my first half marathon 10-2-2011, want to eventually run ultras and have even joined SLUGS (St. Louis Ultrarunners Group) here in St. Louis. I also belong to a training team here in St. Louis and we do long trail runs on Sundays.

I am really interested in doing the 25K Malibu Canyon run. A couple of questions:

How hilly is the course?

Will my ASICS Kayanos be sufficient or will I need trail shoes?

Would this 15-miler be too much for someone who started running distances since July 2011?? Again, my first half marathon is on Oct. 2 and I have recently completed 2 10-mile runs (my longest distance since I began running distances last month).

I'm REALLY excited about moving home to L.A. (I've been gone 16 years for school) and especially running in Malibu Canyon as it is where my best motorcycle riding was~

Thank you for your feedback!!

Evie
Ultramarathoner-in-training (smile!)

[Christy B]

Hi Evie -

I personally haven't run this race before, but I'm very familiar with trail races, especially Coastal's as I've run several now with distances between 20k and 30k. Given that, my suggestion is that you take a look at the course description and the elevation profile for the 25k. The elevation gain is 2,570' which, for a first time trail racer, should be considered pretty "hilly". In April I ran the Go!St. Louis half and that has an elevation gain of a few hundred feet for the whole race so that should tell you what you can expect with this race.

As far as whether you can do this distance, that's really a personal decision based on how you feel your training is going. You might want to consider doing a shorter trail race (maybe a 10k or 15k) with an elevation gain in between your first half and this race. It might also help you to know that trail racers consider it pretty acceptable to walk when needed up the hills, especially if this is your first trail race.

Lastly, as far as shoes, many have trail running shoes, but not everyone chooses to have separate trail-specific shoes. One of the main differences is the thickness of the treads so you have a little more between you and rocks or roots on the trail. The Malibu race is only 16% paved with the remaining course fairly evenly divided between fireroads and single-track trails. The trail running shoes usually provides the most benefit on the single-track where your more likely to encounter rocks, roots, and uneven surfaces. Personally, I love my trail running shoes, but I wouldn't have a problem if I had to run in my regular road running shoes.

My best advice would be for you to do some training runs on trails and run a shorter race. I don't really know of specific trail race organizers, but on the runningintheusa.com site you can specify "trail" in your search. Check it out.

If hope that helped, and I welcome any other poster's comments or opinions if something I've put here doesn't seem right or if they disagree. I can only speak to my experiences and observations, so
I'm sure others have their own views.

And welcome back to California!
Christy