Girls Gone Wildwood

success! Last Thursday Susan sent me a text that Salt and Straw  had a new vegan flavor,  coconut mint chip whoopie pie . My first reaction was, "let's go". With the next obvious question being when? We both live close to different Salt and Straws, but I wanted to experience this new flavor together. The next time we were going to see each other was for our long run. Then like a light bulb going off over my head, I had the brilliant idea of running to Salt and Straw. The Salt and Straw in NW Portland is only a few miles away from Forest Park. And that is exactly what we did! selfie with Anna and Leslie, before we took off to Salt and Straw I met Susan at Salt and Straw Saturday morning, leaving my car there we drove her car to the trailhead at 53rd and Wildwood, where we met Anna and Leslie. We ran the first 10 miles of our 21 mile route with them. Then we ran 11 miles, mostly downhill to Salt and Straw. It started to rain a few miles before we arrived,

A rainbow on the way to the start-- ending in Forest Park! Anna and Leslie have been training for the Alsea Half Marathon (and another, longer race after that for Leslie) and we finally joined up for a run. Since everyone wanted slightly different distances, I thought I'd come up with a route to loop all of us, so we'd have the most time running together. And on my first try, it worked out just about perfectly! Sloppy trails NW 53rd trailhead (ww 9.18) to  Maple Trail (ww 12.84)-- 3.66 mi Maple (ww 12.84) to Leif (6.44)-- 3.52 mi (7.18 total) Leif (6.44) to Saltzman (LE 6.2)-- .24 mi (7.42 total) Saltzman to WW (16.01)-- .5 mi (7.92 total) WW (16.01) to FL2 (ww 12.74)-- 3.27 mi (11.19 total) FL2 to Leif (3.71)-- .46 mi (11.65 total) Leif (3.71) to Alder (le 1.49)-- 2.22 mi (13.87 total) Alder to WW (9.4)-- .84 mi (14.71 total) Anna heads to NW 53rd trailhead for 15 miles Lots of lovely dog violets (and other spring flowers) in bloom WW

    Dan Savage   has a theory that every long-term relationship has a " price of admission " -- the things your partner does that drives you up the wall but is still worth it. Having a long-term commitment to ultra running is no different, there is stuff that happens that isn't great but you put up with it for the love of running. One of these things is an injury.  Recently I went on a work trip to   Berlin , where I ran 10 days in a row (excluding the 2 days I was stuck on a plane), and 2 of the runs were 20+ miles. I normally don't run more than 4-5 days a week with yoga and weight training on the non-running days. I knew it was stupid to run so many days in a row, but was stubborn I thought I had to workout everyday, which meant running. Halfway through my trip my left knee started to feel achy going down stairs and when I ran. But of course I kept running and running. I got home Friday afternoon and first thing Saturday morning I went for a 20 mile run, with