CDM Paddle Loop

Now that we have been doing our weekly swim/trail run at Corona Del Mar for a month or two I feel pretty confident in the water and getting around to the trail. Marius has been wanting to do a multisport day for a while now and Keevin and I have thought up some good loops/sports to mix in but today I stumbled upon a little loop of my own. I usually paddle out of the Back Bay on Fridays and decided to just combine our Wednesday swim/run loop in the middle... It looked like this when it was all over.


The only problem at first was where to leave my boat until it hit me... I could just tie it up with the other boats and add a swim in and out from the beach. Perfect! My paddle session was extended and my loop began... Luckily, I have been lazy enough to keep all kinds of crap in my truck so I managed to dig up some running shoes, Marius's wingnut backpack (thanks!), a dry shirt, socks and even some goggles. All I needed to complete the trip was some bungee cords to tie up my boat and a dry bag to pull behind me on the swim in. Gear check complete.

The laps broke out something like this-
Lap 1 - Paddle out of the back bay to Big Corona 6ish miles / 60min
Lap 2 - Tie up boat and swim into shore
Lap 3 - Run the single track trail out and back 7ish miles / 60min
Lap 4 - Swim back to boat 1mile / 30min-ish total swim
Lap 5 - Paddle back to the NAC in the back bay 4-ish miles / about 40min

I started with a warmup paddle out of the harbor and over to the boats. I was warmed up and ready to swim. The tricky part was packing all my gear and getting the boat to stay locked up to the outside buoy.

(the welcome of cold water in the morning fog)

I used some extra bungees to tie the dry bag around my waist and swim it in... My only problem was that my boat was following me in! By the time I got to running and looked back my smaller bungee attached to the buoy had snapped. My swim was extended a bit to pull my boat back out and tie it up. I learned it is much better to clip on to the rope under the buoy where there is less motion from the ocean anyways.

By the time I got back the beach I was starting to shiver a bit... I was looking forward to warming up on the run and I felt so good. I finally got the kinks worked out of my paddle and no numb legs...

(Unpack the dry bag and get going)

The top of the run has two options at the end of the trail. Left heads up to San Joaquin Hills Rd at the corner of Newport Coast crossing where you can make a sub 1 mile cross over to the back of El Moro park. The right turn was undiscovered until today but I soon found that it just ends about 400 yards after the turn. I guess we were going the right way all along. Next time we will plan to have some bikes at the top of the run for a lap or two through El Moro park and maybe a few hill repeats up Newport Coast Drive. The sun was now pushing through the clouds and the run back was getting h o t . . .

I was a bit nervous leaving my boat but so stoked on the run back down to be able to enjoy the day like this... We normally are coming back in the dark so to see the ocean and all of the views on the way down was inspiring... Ahh... So nice.


The swim back out to my boat was the BEST!! The water felt sooo good and I was just thanking the Lord for such a cool playground. The start slow approach worked well and I felt stronger paddling back. Next time will be a super loop with some friends.


GPS dump from the loop and even a little play back over here: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/player/6635596

We are checking out some bike loops for our next go round and it should be another great adventure.