Portola Valley: A trail runners paradise

Portola Valley is for trail enthusiasts.

I never fully appreciated how amazing the tiny little town of Portola Valley is until this last weekend. The town, for those unfamiliar, is in the mid peninsula just west of highway 280 sandwiched by Woodside to the north, Los Altos Hills to the south. Atherton, Menlo Park and Palo Alto, or more specifically Stanford, are all a stones throw to the east. This is by all accounts a very tiny town encompassing about 9 square miles with a population of just over 4400 as of 2011. Portola Valley has almost as many miles of trails within its town limits as it has miles of paved roads. No kidding. The two main roads are Alpine Rd running east & west and Portola Rd running north and south. Both have a trail running along side of them and I don't mean the shoulder of the road. I mean a real trail that horses and runners regularly use. Parts of these trails are paved and wide and some sections appear to be nearly brand new. Other sections are narrow, winding single track. Almost every other "neighborhood" road off of these two roads has a single track trail along side it.

Great to be out on the trails again!

Thanksgiving weekend gave me four days off work and I took advantage of the daylight three times with some great trail runs. With the daylight dwindling and the weather turning colder and wetter leaving the trails sloppy and uninviting I haven't been on the trails much. My training log says 2 days training on the trails and 1 day racing on them so far this month. 60% of everything else is eliptical and treadmill so Im lucky to actually make it outdoors this month. Thanksgiving break gave me the opportunity to get out there and I did and so did you or at least your friends did. The trails were loaded full of hikers and runners all over the place. Even in the smaller lesser known parks.