Girls Gone Wildwood

Susan has been gone the last 2 weekends and for whatever reason I find it hard mentally to run more than 3 hours by myself. Physically I know I can, because I do it almost every weekend with Susan but I have a real mental block doing long runs solo. Some would say forcing myself to do this is good mental toughness training and I don't disagree and I have done it plenty of times. But after 2+ years of covid, 4 years of Trump, and all the other awful things that have been going on in the world recently, I don't feel like I need more mental toughness training. So I have broken my long weekend run into 2 medium size runs on Saturday and Sunday. Only running a few hours on both days still gives me the better part of both days to do non-running things. I have also been able to avoid a lot of the crowds since I start super early and end when most people are starting their runs. Though when I have looked on the blog for routes we don't have a lot of routes that are less than 15 mil...

Girls Gone Goat Rocks! For years, we've had Goat Rocks listed in our page of trail to-do's . Our plans finally aligned such that we made a detour on the drive home from our two separate weekends in the greater Seattle area to run a shorter, 12 mile loop in Goat Rocks Wilderness. Running through the lupine We parked at the Berry Patch trailhead and made our way on Goat Ridge Trail (95) up, up, up, through the dry forest. Sadly, the huckleberries weren't ripe yet, but we were soon distracted with views of Rainier through the trees. Rainier on the left and glad we don't have to climb that steep hill to the right Then we emerged from the trees into a wide open alpine valley, ringed by peaks and ridges, cascading with a rainbow of wildflowers. It was absolutely stunning. And I understood why we drove an extra three hours out of our way to run here. Mt St Helens in the distance We wound our way up and up, passing plenty of backpackers for a Monday. Everyone seemed thrilled to...

Susan and I ran 2 20+ mile runs this week, so we decided to do a shorter run on Saturday. I planned a 12 mile route that hit all the trailheads on NW 53rd, my original plan was for us to run the route faster than our normal pace, but that was until I went out on Friday night. I never go out on Friday nights because we are normally running some crazy distance in the morning, but knowing we were only running 12 miles I wasn't worried about having a few drinks. Well it is easy to lose track of how many pints you have had when you are hanging out with friends with a  kegerator and they keep refilling your glass. Well needless to say I was feeling less than awesome in the morning, so there was no speed workout in our future. But running for several hours and sweating out all the toxins from the night before, might be the best hair of the dog I have found yet.  The route: holman - wildwood - aspen - road - leif - wild cherry - dogwood - wildwood - alder - leif - fire lane 1 - ...

"wedding cake toppers" that Susan made It's my wedding weekend, and how do I entertain my out of town family? By running of course (and drinking beer). My step-sister, Gretchen and step-brother Noel had never been to Portland, so I was excited to show them where I spend most of my time running, especially Noel since he is a trail / ultra runner too. The first day everyone but Noel and I stuck to Leif, but he ventured off Leif with me for a few good climbs up to Wildwood and on Wildwood. Noel is from Texas, so Forest Park is pretty hilly for him, but he was able to keep his pace up. Dad, Gretchen and Stepanee on Leif Erickson Gretchen and Stepahnee Noel and me 1st day of family running On my actually wedding day the only one from the family who would get up and run with Susan and me was Noel. And since I wouldn't let Susan plan a bachelorette party and I didn't have any bridesmaids, we somehow ended up calling the run the "bridesmaid ...