While you were away

Susan and her family went to Seattle for the long Memorial Day weekend, which left me contemplating how many solo miles I wanted to log over the weekend. For whatever reason 20+ miles solo is really mentally challenging for me, it is more getting myself out the door than anything else. Once I am running, I am fine but I seem to find all sorts of ridiclious things to keep me from reaching the trailhead. We call this 'fucking around on purpose' or FAOP for short. 

Thursday Susan told me that she would have time to run ~10 miles on Friday morning before they left for Seattle. I was elated, not only would I get to have some time on the trails with Susan, but I could shorten my solo run the next day since I was going to put in extra miles on Friday. 

I planned a route where we would run up to the Pittock Mansion first thing in the morning and hopefully get a good view of the city waking up. The weather didn't have the same plans, so instead we got an over cast view of Portland. 


Portland from Pittock
Friday route:
holman - ww : .76
ww - pittock : 2.25
ww (pittock) - aspen : 2.68
aspen - aspen ave : .23
aspen ave - leif : .50
leif - alder : 1.57
alder - ww : .84
ww - birch : 1.96
birch - 53rd : .23

total : 10.92
A very green Springville

Saturday, I perfected the art of FOAP! I think it took me 3 hours to get myself out the door to the trail. I wavered back and forth on what distance I should run. I finally decided to have my husband drop me off at the Springville trailhead and I would just figure out a route as I went and eventually make my way home. 

I ended up running 15 miles which was some variation of Springville - Ridge - Leif - Maple - Wildwood - home. I listed to Trail Runner Nation and Ultrarunner Podcast while I ran, which is always good company.

Saturday evening John and I met friends in Hood River for beers and to see another friend's band play at Double Mountain. This also gave us the opportunity to explore some new trails on the other side of the Gorge. 


Coffee in Hood River before hiking

Sunday we decided to go check out Observation Peak, outside of Carson, Washington in the Trapper Creek Wilderness. It was overcast the whole time, since we weren't going to get any views we decided to take the Sunshine trail, since there was a sign that said, "Primitive trail not maintained".  We had a fun time hopping over and going under trees and trying to find the trail. Overall the trail wasn't that bad for an "unmaintained trail", there were even little trail makers on the trees with sunshines carved into them. 

According to Strava we ended up doing ~11.4 miles. I was pretty happy with my milage for the weekend, with 2 runs and the hike. That was until I got in the car and got cell coverage.

Yes, please!

Trail maker for Dry Creek Trail

I got a text from #trailrunning (aka David) asking if I wanted to run 20 miles the next day. For a moment I thought that is dumb, I put in enough miles for the weekend, but that thought passed quickly and I responded with a yes. As soon as I got home I planned a 20 mile route for us. 

We actually ended up running ~22 miles, because David wanted his Strava to say 20 miles since it was off a bit. Mine was fairly accurate, but I was fine running an extra few miles, I was feeling great. The Trail Factor 50k  was going on while we were running, we kept getting mistaken for racers and getting told, "good job". Which is always nice to hear regardless if you are racing or not, we did inform people that we were not racing but just out for a causal jog. 



Monday route:
Holman - ww: .76
ww - alder: 3.5
alder - leif: .84
leif - maple: 2.7
maple - leif : 2.73
leif - saltzman : .23
saltzman - ww: .50
ww - holman : 10
holman - 53rd : .76 

total: 22.02

Considering I thought I was going to be (mostly) solo running this weekend, it actually turned out to be a pretty social weekend. 

Comments

  1. I love FOAP, hee hee. I do that all of the time, especially before long runs. Cheers and happy running.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oopps, I meant FAOP. Can't even get that much right tonight, lol.

    ReplyDelete

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