Girls Gone Wildwood

"Ooh child things are gonna get easier Ooh child things'll get brighter Ooh child things are gonna get easier Ooh child things'll get brighter Someday we'll get it together and we'll get it undone Someday when the world is much brighter Someday we'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun Someday when the world is much lighter" I have listened to the song O-o-h Child a lot this weekend. It has been a very hard week for this country especially for people of color. I have been at a loss for words and searching for what I can do to make things better. I have donated money to Black Lives Matter, I have posted things on social media, I have talked to friends and family, but there has to be more I / we can do.   I know every morning, afternoon and evening that I go running without worry, that I am privileged. Only a few times in the 10 years I have been running in Forest Park have I felt unsafe.  I know living on a street with 4 trailheads into park with 80 miles o

After my sore hamstrings turned into a cramping pain that curtailed our run the previous weekend, I spent the whole week gingerly trying to run-- and failing. So I did yoga, and stretched, and tried to improve my home office setup for ergonomics.  When it came time for our long weekend run, I wanted the possibility of doing the whole thing, without being forced to limp 5 miles back to the car (again). So I made a route starting at  Springville , using the branches of Firelane 7 to loop around and never get too far away from our trailhead start. As a bonus, it added up to a perfect 23 miles-- Ann's lucky number! And it did turn out to be lucky. I felt good the whole time and was able to run all of it.  Start at Springville Spr to WW (22.45) (stay left)-- .33 WW (22.45) to FL 10 (ww 25.43)-- 2.98 (3.31) FL 10 to Leif/Canon-- 1.9 (5.21) Leif (11.17) to Springville (le 9.37)-- 1.8 (7.01) Springville (le 9.37) to WW (22.45)-- .38 (7.39) WW(22.45) to Hardesty (

Cedar heading down one of the many firelanes On the weekends we have been trying to avoid the more crowed parts of the park so it's easier to practice social distancing. Well last weekend it was in the 80s and it didn't matter which end of the park we were in or which gnarly firelane we took, there were people everywhere. But all but 1 person were very nice and tried to maintain as much distance as possible.  Susan and I have been participating in Wyeast Wolfpack's Climb 4 Community , which is a virtual challenge that over the course of 2 weeks you try and run either the distance around or complete the elevation to the top of some of the PWN's most iconic mountains. I've been averaging 50-55 miles each week since Covid-19, so the distance wasn't a challenge as much as the elevation. I decided we should run the NW Nasty, but it's only ~11 miles, so I added ~9-8 miles on either side of it. So now you have Nasty in the Middle. Cedar enjoying a roll in the grass