Girls Gone Wildwood

Granite Mountain Lookout John and I spent the long weekend in Seattle house sitting for my sister. We hiked in the snow up to the Granite Mountain Lookout   and in the rain to Oyster Dome in the Chuckanut Mountains. Before we headed back to Portland I wanted to get a trail run in. I was hoping to get in a longer running around Wallace Lake and Falls, but we had a little too much fun at Uber Tavern the night before and I didn't get up until 9am. Instead I decided to do a shorter run a little closer to Seattle, Squak Mountain in the "Issaquah Alps". San Juan Islands on the way up to Oyster Dome Squak Mountain trail map John decided to hike while I ran, so we grab all our stuff and headed to the trailhead. When we got to the trailhead and I went to put on my shoes I discovered I had forgotten my socks. Unfortunately I had worn my sandals in the car, so I didn't have any socks, but I decided to just run without socks and deal with the consequences.

Wilderness Creek Trailhead Last summer Susan and I took a day off a work each month to explore trails in the Columbia Gorge and around Mt Hood. Normally on the weekends we stick close to home in Forest Park, so we have more time with friends, family and to take care of other weekend obligations. By taking a day off to do a run in the middle of the week we don't have to worry about any of this, plus there is a lot less traffic on the trails and you feel like you have the whole place to yourself. Ever since noticing the Cougar Mountain Trail Run Series  last year in Seattle at The North Face store, I have been wanting to check out the trails on Cougar Mountain. Luckily my sister lives in Seattle and I visit quite a bit, but she is not a trail runner (yet) and I don't want to go visit and take off for a better part of a day to trail run and not spend time with her. I am not sure why it hasn't occurred to before that I should go up a day early, take the day off and go tra

Ann was away for the weekend, visiting her sister in Seattle, so I did the simplest route possible: Leif (starting at Thurman) to Saltzman to Wildwood to Wild Cherry and back to Leif. Fifteen-plus miles. Boom, done. A bright orange slug. They come in a rainbow of colors here in the Pacific Northwest. I saw lots of colorful details in nature around me, even though the route itself was boring. These starry white wildflowers were everywhere in drifts. But it felt really tough. I felt sluggish and achy. I thought it was just the late start and running alone, until the next morning it was even worse and my throat hurt. Well no wonder-- I was SICK! Quite a few hatched robins' eggs caught my eye on the trail. The moral of the story is that if a run feels tough, cut yourself some slack. There might be a good reason. Taking home a souvenir-- didn't see this until I got in the car.

Wild Iris on Wildwood Last week Susan and I started the 5 week " Mountain Goat Hill Running Series " taught by Yassine Diboun and Willie McBride of Animal Athletics . The first class focused on uphill running, which I was really looking forward to, not so sure about Susan. We talked about and practiced:  the pelvis bowl concept trying to keep your body as straight as possible  pumping your arms but not so much you are crossing your body  looking uphill but only about 3 feet or so ahead  my favorite, running a zig zag line instead of a straight line to help take some of the steepness out of a hill New "NO BIKES" sign So for our long run I wanted to make sure we got enough hills in, so we could practice our new skills. Susan accused me of trying to do extra credit work.  John dropped us off at the Saltzman trailhead, we ran down to Wildwood and zigzagged between Leif and Wildwood a few times, until we ended up on Maple and back up to Wildwoo

This was a nice trip out to the far end of Wildwood from Springville, my favorite trailhead, and then straight back. We built in a shorter option in case we could entice Sally to run with us again, but she injured her foot the day before and skipped out. A missing shoe at the far end of Wildwood Start at Springville Springville to FL7 to Hardesty-- .08mi Hardesty to LE (9.00)-- .56mi (.64 total) Leif (9.00) to Cannon (le 11.17)-- 2.17mi (2.81 total) Cannon to WW (24.63)-- .32mi (3.13 total) WW (24.63) to Newberry Rd (ww 30.16)-- 5.53mi (10.2 total) Newberry (ww 30.16) to Ridge (ww 20.86)-- 9.3mi (17.96 total) Ridge to FL7-- .4mi (18.36 total) FL7 to car-- .32mi (18.68 total)