Girls Gone Wildwood

The weekend before Christmas, John and I made our annual trip to Bend and Mt Bachelor with a lot of our good friends to kick off the ski and snowboard season. This is the 4th year we have done this, I look forward to getting together with everyone, drinking, eating, watching cheesy ski movies and of course snowboarding. Sometimes the weather on Mt Bachelor is less than optimal for snowboarding, which happened one day during our trip, it was raining instead of snowing.  On the lift with Chris, John and Karrla Mine and Amber's snow selfie I took advantage  of the "free day" and went running on the Deschutes River trail, which I have done on a few other trips . I thought I should find a different trail, but the proximity  to Bend, length of the trail and being right next to a river is hard to beat. Luckily the rain held out for me and I didn't have to run in snow like previous years. I highly recommend this trail, if you ever find yourself looking for a route

Our very first "ultra" (distance greater than a marathon) was running the Wildwood trail from its start near the zoo in Washington Park to its sudden end at Newberry Road in Forest Park in 2011, only a few weeks after running our first trail marathon. The day we did it happened to be right between our birthdays, which are only six days apart and fall near the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Back then, it was more birthday challenge than treat. Our start at the Newberry end of Wildwood In 2013 we did it again, the opposite direction (in 2012 we ran the North Face Endurance Challenge 50k in San Francisco the next weekend, so we skipped Wildwood). This way is supposed to be more challenging because the major hill up to Pittock Mansion (mile 3.9) comes closer to the end, when you're more tired. For some reason it felt great the whole way, nearly effortless. In fact, it was on this run that we decided to change our registration in the Tarawera Ultra from the 60k to t

I got home late on Friday night, and it was my turn to pick the route for our long run on Saturday, so I searched our blog and chose a 20 miler we hadn't done in a while. It was a straightforward loop, but it felt hard; much more difficult than our 38 miles last Saturday. Was I still recovering from last week's very long run? Tired from a night of little sleep? Dragging from the wine I drank last night? I think the answer is yes, to all of it. After our picnic break, Ann was feeling it too. Although the conditions were great-- it wasn't raining and it was a great temperature-- we were both glad when it was over. A long-toed salamander on Wildwood Nearly to Birch, on Wildwood, we almost stepped on this cute little long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum)-- a welcome distraction! This is only the second salamander I've seen in Forest Park in the decade I've been running there.

This Thanksgiving we want to give thanks to all our friends and family who enable, tolerate, cheer on, our crazy running habit. We know you don't always understand why we would possibly want to run 50+ miles, but you are always there for us. From driving us to trailheads at 4am, to flying half way across the world to wait at the finish line for us, or simply being Mr. Mom every Saturday morning.  This Thanksgiving several of us met at NW 53rd and Wildwood for a Turkey Trail Trot. Susan was adventurous enough to even bring her running stroller along. Most of the group ran about 4 miles, Sally and I did a 10 mile loop. We both ran into several other people we knew along the route. We are very lucky to have such an amazing running community and trail system in Portland. Happy Thanksgiving! Our Turkey Trail Trot crew Route: 53rd and ww (9.20 - 14.5) - koenig: 5.3 koenig - maple : .27 maple - leif : .38 leif - dogwood: 3.3 dogwood - ww: .34 ww - 53rd: .71 total: 10.30

Our first sun break 23 and some change was the subject of my email to Susan with our route for Saturday, but given how much the weather changed on Saturday I thought it was an appropriate title for this blog post too. The run started out overcast and as we ran down BPA Road we got into a fog cloud, which stuck with us all the way to the top of Springville. As we ran down Hardesty the sun started to peak in between the fog and the trees. Over the course of the rest of the run we got rain, full sun and more fog, the only thing missing to complete an Oregon winter was snow. The start of the run at the top of BPA road 6 miles later at the top of Springville the fog had settled in The route was as varied as the weather, we were never on one section of trail more than 5 miles. Lots of ups and down in between Wildwood and Leif Erickson but nothing too daunting. I love when we have routes where we don't spend a big stretch of it on Wildwood at one time, mentally it makes

Susan and I love Rainshadow Running  races, so of course when we heard about the inaugural Oregon Coast 50k , we knew we had to run it. When I saw that the race was taking place in October on the Oregon Coast, I was a little skeptical, since that time of year the coast is notorious for bad weather (well really all Fall and Winter). But we had ran in plenty of races with bad weather, so what is a little rain on the coast?  Our pre-race selfie with Kat                          Showing off our kokopellis The race took place on Saturday, October 18th. My sister came to Yachats with me and the house we rented was only a few miles from the start. The race didn't start until 9 am, which seemed so late and leisurely compared to most ultra-marathons. We did have to be at Adobe Resort in Yachats by 8:30 to check-in and take the bus to the start. After I checked in I heard my name, but it wasn't Susan, it was Kat. It was a pleasant surprise to see her, I had forgot she

The "Triple D" is the crazy challenge of hiking Devil's Rest, Mt Defiance, and Dog Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge, all in one day. Apparently it started as a Mazama thing but is also documented on Portland Hikers . Somehow, one of us brought this up and we decided to do it as our November day-off-work run. Ann swears it was me, but how can that be true when I had only heard of it from her? Construction at Wahkeena trailhead Ann picked me up with bagels and coffee, and we got an early-ish start. We got to the Wahkeena Falls trailhead to run Devil's Rest, and were at first concerned that the trail was closed. Fortunately, this was the trail going the other way. Phew! At the start of our Triple D Wahkeena Falls Devil's Rest was a great start. At 7 1/2 miles and  2550 feet of elevation gain, it was surprisingly runnable and a great warm-up. Now is when I admit that as we got near the top, I stopped for lots of really cool mushrooms-- a PURPLE ON