Girls Gone Wildwood

Susan had been out of town for over a week and wanted to surprise her with a new route, plus it has been quite awhile since I created a new route. So many of our route start on one of the many trailheads on NW 53rd or from Saltzman or Springville, so I decided to start on Firelane 2. Firelane 2 doesn't really have much of a trailhead, there is a pull out off of Skyline Blvd. that I assume can hold about 5 cars. There is also a chain fence that has been pulled away so you can access the trail, it feels totally sketchy but all legal.  The longest single stretch of the route is only ~3.55 miles, so there is a lot of variety in the route, which I prefer. There is a lot of ups and downs between Leif and Wildwood but nothing too crazy. Honestly this was the perfect route for an easy Sunday morning of catching up on life between to best friends and their crazy dog.  Route: Firelane 2 - WW: .70 WW- Maple: .03 Maple - (end of Maple) Leif: 3.55 Leif - Hardesty : 2.58 Hardesty - WW: .27 WW- W

As we all started to get vaccinated and races started to open up for 2021, Susan and I got quite excited. We have wanted to do Backcountry Rise for awhile, but it always falls on the weekend after Labor Day, which is an annual trip for my family to the beach. But this year the race was taking place in July and had a 50 mile option. So we decided to sign up for it.  at the start of the race with David Well fast forward to a few weeks before the race, I decided that I should actually look at the race course. I mean I knew it was 11,000+ of climbing and that we ran the 50k + 20m course.  What I didn't realize was how much of the 20 mile course was actually the 50k course. I have a real mental block on doing multiple loops of the same course. I was also concerned about the cut off times. Despite having trained since January for the race I haven't gotten any faster in the last few years, I can blame covid weight or old age, but it is what it is. We (I) made the last minute decis