Girls Gone Wildwood

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...

  Best campsite ever, Alpine Lakes Wilderness It's been a while, but don't worry-- we're still running!  Our big event for 2025 was Devil's Gulch 50 miler on 12 July in Wenatchee, WA. To train for this longer distance, we did our traditional Peterson Ridge Rumble 20 miler on 13 April in Sisters, OR, then Orcas Island 50k on its brand new date in June (rather than the end of January). We were diligent with our speedwork, heat training, back-to-back longer runs, and LOTS of elevation. Sasquatch sighting before Peterson Ridge Rumble Rachael at the top of Mt Constitution, Orcas Island When it came time for our big race, Ann and Kellen finished strong, Rachael rocked her half marathon, and I had a DNF after getting hot spots early and visiting the aid station medics for the first time ever (at two of the aid stations). Top of Mission Peak, Devil's Gulch 50 miler With that accomplished, we moved on to the adventure portion of the summer. Fastpacking 50 miles around Three ...

Top of Saltzman 2024   Susan and I decided to run 24 miles to kick off 2024. As I was looking through our previous routes, I found one called ' 24 mile taper run ', which seemed perfect - how hard can a taper run be? I didn't scrutinize the route closely. Nine miles in, I realized we had to run from the bottom to the very top of Saltzman. Who does that as part of a taper? Apparently, we did, ten years ago. Upon reaching the summit, I had Susan take a photo in the same spot as before. It felt great to push ourselves, which we plan to continue in 2024. Same route, different year -- 2014 Honesty, I love that we are still running routes we created 10 years ago, may be a bit slower though but who cares. I love that for us! 

Before we dive in let's level-set on the fun scale. Many outdoor enthusiasts use it to measure the type of fun they have or have had. Here are the different levels of fun ( borrowed from REI ): Type 1 Fun: Enjoyable while it's happening. It's straightforwardly fun and pleasurable. Type 2 Fun: Not necessarily enjoyable in the moment but becomes fun in retrospect or when sharing the story with others. Type 3 Fun: Not fun at the time and not fun in retrospect, but often leads to personal growth or a sense of achievement. 2023 started as type 3 fun for me. I was dealing with the loss of my mom, working for a toxic, gaslighting boss, and then losing my job at the end of January. I wasn’t upset about losing my job– it was an awful situation– but that is a story for another time. I was not excited about looking for a job when almost every tech company laid off folks. But this is a running blog, not my life story blog (though sometimes these things are very intertwined). Some peopl...