The Streets of Santa Ana

May 6, 2012/ Fitness, Running/ 1 comments

A few weeks ago, I told you guys about how wonderful Orange is for running. Beautiful neighborhoods, clean streets and sidewalks, lots of shade and over all a safe place for a gal to run on her own.

Well this week things took a turn for the negative and I found myself lost in the streets of Santa Ana.

The thing about SoCal – Los Angeles and its greater metropolitan area specifically – is that cities just run together. If you don’t spend a lot of time in the area, you won’t really notice the difference between one city and the next because you literally cross the street and now you’re no longer in Santa Ana, you’re in Orange.

But if you are from here, you know that Orange is rich and safe and Santa Ana, for the most part, is…well, not rich. Let’s put it that way.

Minutes from my house is access to the Santa Ana River trail, this amazing and diverse trail that runs across three counties, from the mountains to the beach. It’s such a strange thing to have in the middle of this concrete jungle.

Where I get on, the trail runs parallel to a golf course. And it’s absolutely gorgeous!

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There are plenty of other bikers and runners on the trail with you but not so many that it’s crowded. If the whole thing was like this, I would run it every week.

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The first four or so miles were wonderful. My legs were rested from the week off and the day was the perfect temperature for running. I had been worried that I might not feel properly fueled since I had eaten breakfast so early and set off to run later than usual, but I chugged along just fine.

After the golf course ended, all of my trail companions seemed to disappear. And so did the trees. And the shade. And suddenly I was running along the arroyo, going under freeway underpasses that were littered with people’s belongings, reeking of urine.

I didn’t used to consider myself a skittish person. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood but was literally a block away from the ghetto in Albuquerque but I didn’t care. I’d never felt unsafe and I would walk those streets all the time without any problems. Other people from wealthy parts of town would tell me they were afraid to come down to that area and I never understood why.

Last year I was running on this same trail early in the morning – it was barely light out – and a man on a bike rode up next to me. He said something to me and I thought he was asking for money so I shook my head and he rode ahead but kept looking back at me. I was a little uneasy about it, not yet worried though, but just to be safe, I decided to turn around and run the other way so I wouldn’t have to encounter him again. Moments later, he appeared again this time he circled me and he made a kissing gesture in my direction. The trail runs along an arroyo and is fenced off from the neighborhoods around it. You enter and exit the trail every half mile or so. I was stuck here with this man and he knew that.

I got the message fast and turned around and booted it toward the exit. I didn’t look back and he didn’t follow me home (thank god!) but I don’t run that trail unless it’s the middle of the day now. And because of that incident and how trapped you are on it, I feel really uneasy when I go under those freeway passes with no other people around.

Because of that incident, I get easily spooked now, especially by bikers. I know nothing happened but I’m stil very wary of the possibility that something could. As I was crossing a street yesterday, a man on a bike came up and got on the trail too. I’m not typically a judger but there is a type of person I don’t want to be alone with on a trail for a half mile and this man was one of them. I made a very obvious u-turn and headed on to the streets of Santa Ana.

Dirty and crowded are the words to describe this area. Not to mention I was now kinda lost and off track. I had planned to run out 5.5 miles and then turn back, an easy way to measure my intended 11 mile distance. I was probably a mile away from my turn around point and while I could have gone forward, I was spooked and I was also bored. The trail had become hot and dry and flat and I was in need of water. The only water fountain on the trail that I’ve ever seen is right where I get on at my house. Not when I need it really.

I kinda knew which roads led where and kinda knew how to make up the mile I had missed. I ended up taking a much longer than intended walking break as I navigated the world’s largest Good Will in search of water, which ended up being out of the bathroom sink (and again, this was not the cleanest bathroom I’d ever seen but I was desperate).

I had the dried cranberries that I had brought for fuel but I knew by the six mile point this was going to be a VERY hard five-mile run home. It was hot, I was hurting and I was bored. And as I ran along, I just felt angry that I had been derailed from the trail because I’d been scared. Not angry at myself but angry at the man who had scared me. And angry that terrible things actually do happen and that there really is a reason to be scared.

It got to a point where I was so dehydrated that it hurt to walk. I made small deals with myself. I could walk to change the song and then run for just the length of the song before walking to change it again (Pandora was really not picking well yesterday). I actually wanted to run because that would get me home faster. I tried reminding myself how lucky I am to be able to run at all. That this is an opportunity, that so many people cannot even run a mile and today I was going to run eleven!

And I did.

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I ended up back at home in a lot of pain. I slowly made it into a shower and did my best to stand long enough to get clean. Resting a little did help and by mid-afternoon, I was pretty much feeling like I do after a typical long run. A little tired but nothing too extreme.

Lessons learned from yesterday

  • WATER Especially as it gets hotter, I cannot do more than a few miles without water on these longer runs. So routes need to be planned to accomodate this.
  • Routes I can’t run more than five miles on that trail. It’s a bummer but I’m always a little spooked and I don’t need to be focusing on that during my runs. It’s funny though, I always choose to do loops but had I done that yesterday, I would have cut my milage because of how sore I was at the end. The only reason I completed my goal was because I did an out and back.
  • Hip Exercises The main area I’ve been feeling pain is in my hips. I’d never felt this until a few weeks ago. New shoes helped a little but I think I need to put some time into strengthening my hip muscles. I don’t think it’s an over use injury because I don’t increase my milage by more than 10% week over week and I even took last week off. I’m going to start with the two hip machines at he gym but also look into some additional exercisers I can do at home. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears!

Next wek I’m not sure I’ll do 11 miles again as per my plan. It might be a good idea to scale back to 8-9 miles while I get this hip thing under control. Despite how horrible this run was, I’m still excited for my next one. I often remind myself durning my runs that I don’t love running for how it makes me feel while I’m doing it. I love it for how it makes me feel every other moment of my life and that feeling is the same – bad or good run.

1 Comment

  1. Pingback: Checking In, Catching Up | Creature of Habit

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