Girls Gone Wildwood

uphill both ways Yassine of Animal Athletics decided to do one last long training run in preparation for his 3rd HURT 100  and invited a lot of the Portland trail running community to join him. His route was 4 loops of the "North Nasty", which is ~11 miles and 3000 feet of elevation gain.  Look Susan does run uphill! Last year Animal Athletics did several group runs they called the " Nasty Series ", for one reason or another Susan and I weren't able to make any of the runs, well technically we tried to make one, but we were late. This time since Yassine was doing loops, we knew we could start any time and he would eventually   catch up to (pass) us .  We decided to do 1 loop of the North Nasty and add on an extra "easier" 9 miles to give us a good 20 miler.  Found when we went down the wrong turn off on Skyline We really enjoyed seeing so many people running the route and chatting with everyone, even if was just passing and sayin...

Our first sun break 23 and some change was the subject of my email to Susan with our route for Saturday, but given how much the weather changed on Saturday I thought it was an appropriate title for this blog post too. The run started out overcast and as we ran down BPA Road we got into a fog cloud, which stuck with us all the way to the top of Springville. As we ran down Hardesty the sun started to peak in between the fog and the trees. Over the course of the rest of the run we got rain, full sun and more fog, the only thing missing to complete an Oregon winter was snow. The start of the run at the top of BPA road 6 miles later at the top of Springville the fog had settled in The route was as varied as the weather, we were never on one section of trail more than 5 miles. Lots of ups and down in between Wildwood and Leif Erickson but nothing too daunting. I love when we have routes where we don't spend a big stretch of it on Wildwood at one time, mentally...

After Ann's little surprise for me-- my least favorite uphill trail at the end of 23 miles-- I decided to return the favor. Ann tries to kick BPA away  Ann's least favorite trail is BPA, and it's easy to see why. From Wildwood it plummets in gravel and nearly-running water right down to Highway 30. And then you have to get back up the hill!  Surveying what's to come Luckily Newton intersects right there, so it's a loop. A scenic, painful, slow loop. Strangely, we saw more people coming up BPA than anywhere else on our entire run. Proving once again that runners are a crazy bunch. View and reflections from BPA Still, it was worth it when Ann asked me at the start of the run how far we were going on Wildwood, and I said "To BPA." Then she asked how far on BPA, and I got to laugh a long, loud, evil laugh, followed by "The whole way!" Priceless! Finishing the downhill For some reason I don't remember Newton from Highway 30 bac...

We needed 18 miles, and I enjoyed the far north end of the park the previous week on my own. So I mixed in just about the only two little loops you can do up there without adding extra mileage. The best part was throwing the infamous BPA trail into the mix. We only did a quarter of a mile of it, but it's fun to be able to throw the name in there. 99  Luftballons... okay, just one It's a fire lane bonanza! Hello, BPA. Can't resist another one showing Ann's love for this trail FL 7 to Ridge-- .32mi Ridge to WW (20.86)-- .4mi (.72 total) WW (20.86) to end (ww 30. 16 )-- 9.3mi (10.02 total) WW (30.16) to FL 15 (ww 28.63)-- 1.53mi (11.55 total) FL15 to FL12-- .37mi (11.92 total) FL12 to BPA-- .51mi (12.43 total) BPA to WW (27.45) -- .25mi (12.68 total) WW (27.45) to Newton Rd (ww 26.30)-- 1.15mi (13.83 total) Newton Rd to Parking lot/ FL 10-- .60mi (14.43 total) Parking lot/ FL10 to WW (25.43)-- .15mi (14.58 total) WW (25.43) to Hard...