Girls Gone Wildwood

Enjoying the view on a break I was originally going to write 2 blog posts, one about our day off of work run and another about my year of recovery from a herniated disc. But the route I picked for our Gorge run was based on the route I created a year ago for a day off of work run which we weren't able to do because I ended up in the emergency room . So I thought it was appropriate to combine the two blog post into one. 

I started with an old 24 mile route , knowing it would be easy to add 2 miles on somewhere. I thought a little loop out along Wildwood on the way back down Saltzman would be perfect, but it only added 1/3 of a mile... or more than 3. Ann suggested adding the Dogwood-Kiel loop, which sounded perfect.

Susan and I normally run all of Wildwood Thanksgiving weekend because it falls between both of our birthdays, this has been our birthday tradition for the past 4 years. This year there were torrential downpours over Thanksgiving weekend, so we decided to push it out a week. The problem with that plan was, I was spending the week before in Vegas at a work conference. Knowing that I was going to run all of Wildwood the day after I got home from Vegas definitely made me behave in Vegas. But a week in Vegas is still a week in Vegas, no matter how much I tried to behave and I was feeling exhausted when I got home on Friday, and Susan was getting over a stomach bug, so we decided to push all of Wildwood out again. Instead of running ~30 miles we decided to run 25, makes perfect sense, right? 

In a very unusual situation for us, we both made routes for this run. Usually when it's my turn, I create one around 11pm on Friday night before the run. So I was proud to create and send this on Friday afternoon.  Fiery sunrise But right after I sent it, I saw that Ann had just emailed me a route. Two for the price of one! We decided to use my route this time, and modify Ann's for next week's 30 miler. The sun peeking up to start to illuminate the trail This route has the distinction of never touching Leif Erikson, which is a nice change to avoid the rocky gravel and crowds. We started at 6am to get some time in the dark, using our headlamps. We were treated to an amazing, fiery sunrise, none of the expected rain, and a great run. Ann in the shelter on FL 5 Start at Wild Cherry/Dogwood trailhead  Dogwood to WW (8.47)-- .22 mi WW(8.47) to Morak (ww 10.65)-- 2.18 mi Morak (ww 10.65) to FL1-- .08 mi FL1 to WW (11.18)-- .33 mi WW (11.18) t...