Girls Gone Wildwood

Mt. Baker Back in Portland, I never ran races on Forest Park trails. Why would I pay to run trails I already ran every day? Plus, I had plenty of running friends to explore with. Bellingham is different. I moved here in February 2025, and I'm still figuring out the trails. And I don't really have running friends yet. So when I saw the Galbraith Mountain Trail Series — three races on the 2nd Saturday of November, December, and January — I thought: maybe this is how I do both. Learn the trails AND meet people. Due to my schedule, I was able to partake in the last race in the series.  I picked the long course: 15.6 miles, about 2,600 feet of climbing (according to my Strava ). Classic PNW winter conditions — cloudy, 43 degrees, muddy. Me at the start The long race was tiny, maybe 15-20 people. Most of them took off at the start, and I never saw them again. Things spread out fast. So I didn't really get a chance to chat with anyone during the race, but honestly? It was nice to...

Well hello there — is anyone still reading this thing? Despite not really blogging at all in the last two years, we are still running and having lots of adventures. And, unsurprisingly, a lot has happened in that time. Torres del Paine Susan got divorced, is solo parenting, adopted a few new cats, lost her job at Nike, and is leaning into some much-needed “me” time. We sold our house in Portland and moved to Bellingham in February (2025). I quit my very stable job and joined a startup. I had a birthday and officially aged into a new race category. I also started outrigger canoeing. Susan, Cedar, and I also welcomed a few more humans and dogs into our pack — Billy (dog), his human Rachael, Miriam, and Kellen. How we all met and became friends definitely deserves its own blog post. To keep this post to something I might actually finish, I’m going to stick to monthly highlights from 2025. And without further ado… January My sister Courtney, Susan, and I traveled to Chile and Argentina...