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New trails, even in Portland

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At the top of Council Crest We had big plans for 25 miles, but sometimes you don't sleep well and need to change it up last minute. Instead of the route I picked out last week, Ann chose a 22 miler as a guideline. Cedar at Pittock Mansion But when we got to Pittock Mansion, we decided to continue south on Wildwood for a bit... which turned into going to the end (technically the start). We even walked into the Vietnam Memorial, and, looking at the map, decided to check out the Marquam Trail that connects Washington Park across Highway 26 to the Marquam Nature Park. Vietnam Memorial in Washington Park Neither of us had ever been on that section of trail before, and it was really neat to discover something new to us after more than 20 years of living here and more than 10 years of running long distances on these trails. We saw a sign that showed a little more than a mile to Council Crest-- the highest point in Portland-- so we decided to run to it. Marquam Trail sign At the top, we ha
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Happy holidays from Girls Gone Wildwood!

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  As the holiday season approaches, we wanted to take a moment to wish all of our readers a happy and healthy holiday season. Whether you're spending the holidays with friends and family, or taking some time to relax and recharge, we hope that you have a wonderful time. The holiday season can be a busy and stressful time for many of us, but it's also a time to come together with loved ones and celebrate all that we have to be grateful for. We encourage you to take some time for yourself and do something that brings you joy and relaxation. Go for a run in Forest Park, take a yoga class, or simply curl up with a good book and a warm cup of cocoa. At Girls Gone Wildwood, we believe in the power of nature and outdoor adventure to nourish the mind, body, and soul. We hope that you will join us in embracing the beauty of the natural world this holiday season and throughout the year. From all of us at Girls Gone (and Dog) Wildwood, we wish you a happy and healthy holiday season!
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Summer days driftin' away

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Hi! We are still here and running but we haven't been writing about it the last few months, obviously. I have so many blog post in my mind about our summer adventures, but when I think about writing about them I get overwhelmed and find other things to do. So instead of abandoning the blog, I am going to do a quick blog post on all our summer adventures.  Ramona Falls FKT We started the summer with setting a few Fastest Known Times (FKT) as part of Women Who FKT project.  The majority of FKT records are held by men, the idea behind Women Who FKT was to get more women to set FKTs to flips the stats. Susan, Cedar and I set the FKT at Ramona Falls . Cedar and I set the out and back FKT on  Surveyor's Ridge Trail . Hopefully they will have a Dogs Who FKT soon.  Surveyor's Rige FKT  I spent a few weekends in June on Orcas Island running and kayaking. Every time I go to Orcas Island I say the next time I go to the San Juan Island I will go to a different Island, but I don't.
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Gorge Waterfalls 50k 2022

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  Gorge Waterfalls 2013 courtesy  @stevenmortinson Gorge Waterfalls 2022 courtesy  @stevenmortinson When we ran the Gorge Waterfalls 50k nine years ago , in 2013, we were still new to the sport. It was a big deal for us to run the distance, and we had some good luck superstitions like wearing our Performance Enhancing Kokopellis (PEKs). The course was out-and-back, which isn't normally a favorite, but allowed us to be a bit starstruck seeing some of our favorite runners as they ran back past us. While we enjoyed the route, there was a sizable amount of painful road, and since we already run in the Columbia River Gorge regularly, we didn't consider the race again for a while. Selfie at the finish line while waiting for the shuttle The massive Eagle Creek fire destroyed much of Gorge in 2017, and the race was cancelled for a few years. Then, of course, the COVID pandemic put a halt to all events. So when we learned the event would be held this year, in 2022, on a modified course
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Beacon Rock State Park

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near the top of Phlox Point We took last Friday off to have a long over due running adventure. We knew we didn't want to run in Forest Park, we do that ever weekend, and we didn't want to run on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge. With the snow levels still pretty low that only left a few other options. We had our mind set on the Oregon Coast trail around Manzanita. But as it got closer to Friday the weather forecast for the coast was 100% chance of rain. We debated a few other options and landed on Beacon Rock State Park.  racing Cedar at the Saddle I decided to combine two classic routes in the park Hamilton Mountain and Hardy Ridge to Phlox Point . We started at the equestrian trailhead, which is the starting area for Hardy Ridge. We decided to run up to Hamilton Mountain first knowing it's a more popular route and thought we could avoid some of the crowds. No matter how many times I run up Hamilton Mountain I get fooled by a few almost false summits. Susan actually
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2 medium runs equal 1 long run?

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Susan has been gone the last 2 weekends and for whatever reason I find it hard mentally to run more than 3 hours by myself. Physically I know I can, because I do it almost every weekend with Susan but I have a real mental block doing long runs solo. Some would say forcing myself to do this is good mental toughness training and I don't disagree and I have done it plenty of times. But after 2+ years of covid, 4 years of Trump, and all the other awful things that have been going on in the world recently, I don't feel like I need more mental toughness training. So I have broken my long weekend run into 2 medium size runs on Saturday and Sunday. Only running a few hours on both days still gives me the better part of both days to do non-running things. I have also been able to avoid a lot of the crowds since I start super early and end when most people are starting their runs. Though when I have looked on the blog for routes we don't have a lot of routes that are less than 15 mil
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Run more than Ann

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My co-workers decided to create a challenge to see if they could collectively run more than me in a week. I  consistently run 50 miles a week, but I thought for the challenge I should add a few more miles. Since most of my co-workers are Canadian and the challenge is in kilometers, I decided 100km was a nice number and archivable in a week. Doing some math, I decide to make this work I should probably run 30 miles / ~50km for my long run on Saturday. I texted Susan and of course she was game.  I decided to create a new route for us instead of doing an end to end on Wildwood. This also helps me achieve my goal of create 1 new route each month this year, even if I am a few weeks behind in posting it. The route was also good training for the Gorge Waterfall 50km in April, since we were both gone several weekends in March.  I just knew I was going to beat my co-workers, but what I didn't know is they got a few extra people to join the cause right before the weekend. They even created a
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