Anatomy of a long (urban) run

I'm done with my winter quarter of school! Slept in today, awoke to kitty paws and sunlight pouring through the blinds. It didn't seem right not to do a long run today, even though I had plenty of other things on my to-do list nagging at me. I decided to borrow an idea from my friend Alex, whom I met at last year's Orcas Island run (where he totally smoked the men's 50K) and took my camera along for my long run around Seattle today and snap away consistently while in motion.


I found that running with my photographer's eye engaged made for a totally different running experience - first of all, I ran more slowly than usual, which was actually a blessing. I typically don't have the patience for proper "LSD" as it's called among runners - i.e. "Long, Slow Distance", the key component to any decent endurance runner's training schedule - but I took today significantly slower than my normal pace, and it was really enjoyable. I noticed all sorts of new things, found myself smiling pretty much the whole time, and appreciated Seattle so, so very much.


The full album, with captions, in chronological order, can be found here. (Kudos to you if YOU have the endurance to make it through all of the pictures.)

They showcase:
- Cherry blossom trees, skyline views, shimmering lakes, Puget Sound, beaches, bridges, doggies, hula hoops, kites, paper cranes, palm trees, biker butts, the number 33, and me showing some love to a bottle of Gatorade
- Capitol Hill, South Lake Union, Queen Anne, Magnolia, Ballard, Fremont, and more Capitol Hill at the end
- Cal Anderson Park, Lake Union Park, Kerry Park, Discovery Park, Gasworks Park, and Volunteer Park


Woot! This was great. I love, love, love my long runs (three weekends in a row with 3+ hour runs = heaven!) While I treasure their solitude and the quiet space in my head to detox from stress, it's great, too, to be able to share my run with others, in a way. Bless the internet. And Seattle, and my able body, and everything in my life that has led me to where I am right now.


This is a good place.

I saw the ocean!

It's been far too long since I've updated my blog. Apparently, working long hours and hiking on all your off-days doesn't leave much time for writing. I have more reflections on the psychology behind this goal-setting experiment, but I'll save writing about it for once the month is over altogether. For now, suffice to say that I have raised over $200 for the trails, thanks to all you spectacular souls who've helped sponsor my Hike-a-thon. I'm short of my fundraising goal, but I've still got four days! (This will be the last plug for it on my blog, I promise, but if you're at all interested in helping the effort, this is your last chance! Click here to help out.)

In the meantime...the latest in long-awaited hike reports of the past couple weeks...

HIKE #6: BALD MOUNTAIN


Not the most spectacular hikes I've done, but the Bald Mountain Trail nevertheless enchanted me and my crew with its sheer solitude. Jenica, Casey, Wayne and I set out for what some of us thought would be a cool summit - but because we did our approach from the Ashland Lakes trailhead, rather than the generally recommended one by Cutthroat Lakes, we wound up just hiking for a long, long time in the woods until the threat of sunset forced us to turn around, still in the middle of the woods, sans summit or views. We at least had a nice day for it, and a pretty lake on the way up:


We also had the trail entirely to ourselves, which amounted to the intrepid Casey having to fend off many spider webs on the way up. We ate many berries, talked music, and shared stories from our disparate homelands of Appalachia, the Midwest, and southern California. Though the hike itself was nothing to write home about, the company was. Again, so grateful for the friends I've made since moving out here. Good people. :)

Total miles: 11 miles

HIKE #7: OZETTE TRIANGLE (Pacific Coast)

Seyeon and Leo hiking along the beach.
I've been talking about wanting to go out to the coast since I moved here. With that ambition in mind, I took a few days off from work surrounding my birthday last week and, in all the craziness of August, failed to plan pretty much anything. Happily, things worked out all right anyway. I didn't get in the dozens upon dozens of miles I envisioned myself hiking in Olympic National Park, but I did get: amazing time spent with some of my favorite people in the world, a beachside game of Scrabble on my birthday, and my first rain-free camping experience in as long as I can remember (well, it did rain...but only when we were already in the tent, so who cares? At that point, it was just a soothing audio companion to the waves crashing against the rocks thirty feet from our tent.)

There is a sweet loop trail on the coast that Seyeon, Leo, Alan, and I decided to hike and camp along. We had to hike about three miles ("hike"...really, it was an extended stroll through the woods on boardwalks) out to our campsite, an amazing spot right next to the water.


My crew.


Camp: Leo making dinner, Seyeon tending the fire, Alan off searching for firewood, and me predictably behind the camera lens.
The Washington coast is far more rugged than most coastal areas - lots of jagged rocky outcroppings, far less developed, i.e. quite isolated and wild. I definitely want to spend more time exploring it. After an evening of drinking hot cocoa, inhaling s'mores, talking politics, and telling ghost stories, we retreated to our respective tents. I woke up before anyone else and decided to seize the opportunity to go for a little solo birthday morning hike. I walked out quite a way on the beach and found myself a nice big boulder amidst the tide pools to listen to the sea lions, watch the birds, and wish the darned sun would come out. It didn't, but I still felt perfectly content.


A good start to a new year in my life!
When I got back to camp, Alan woke up and joined me for morning stroll #2. We walked out to a cool little island that I believe is only accessible at low tide. There, we watched the waves and speculated about the array of strange objects washed up on the beach. Returned back to camp for a long, lazy day at our campsite, spent drinking more hot cocoa, stirring up our fire again, and playing some Scrabble oceanside.


I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my birthday.
Total miles: 11.5 miles

HIKE #8: KLAHHANE RIDGE (Olympic National Park)


This was a seriously rockin' hike. Alan and I car-camped at the national park's Heart o' the Hills campground the night before, slept in, and got up to Hurricane Ridge by late morning to start our generally unplanned trek.


Alan and I outside of the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center.
At a park ranger's suggestion, we began our amble along the Klahhane Ridge trail, which was paved for a short bit, albeit ridiculously steep and at elevation that made the climb seem much more intense than most of our typical hikes. The pavement and national park crowds quickly and drastically thinned out as we climbed, until finally we pretty much had the largely exposed ridge trail to ourselves.

Although the elevation made it a challenging one, it was a stunning, stunning hike. Sunshine and mostly clear skies proffered spectacular views on both sides of the ridge - on one side, Port Angeles, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Canada visible, and Mount Baker poking through a thin line of clouds...on the other side, a panoramic view of the Olympic Mountains, way more up close and personal than is visible from my beloved home city. No photos will do it justice.


All the wildflowers and wildlife - friendly deer + even friendlier marmots - were icing on the cake.
Total miles: 10 miles

HIKE #9: RACHEL LAKE + RAMPART LAKES


I'm sure I've said it before, but I really, really mean it this time: this was the most gorgeous hike I've done in the Northwest. At the recommendation of a new hire at work whom I was helping train last week, I gathered five friends this past Monday and made the epic trek up first to Rachel Lake, a sometimes gentle, sometimes brutal 4-miler up, then even more brutally upward to scale a ridge and drop back down into the Rampart Lakes basin - a truly magical little hideaway in the mountains, isolated, and pocked with crystal-blue, shimmering mountain lakes. I've been doing a lot of alpine lake hikes lately was, I'm ashamed to say, beginning to feel sort of like "Ehh, once you've seen one mountain lake, you've seen 'em all" - until this hike.


Alan above Rachel Lake on our hike up to Rampart Lakes.
Alan and I were both disappointed as we reviewed our photos later, because somehow more than usual, they completely and utterly fail to convey the majesty of this place. But so it goes. That's, I suppose, why I go outside and hike instead of just admiring the photos in the guidebooks.

The coolest part of the day? At Rachel Lake, as we were all doubled over catching our breath, already massaging our exhausted quad and gluteus muscles, we ran into a 90-year-old man who was hiking with his dog, Dusty. Really friendly guy, who told us that every year, he's worried it'll be his last time getting to see Rachel Lake - but so far, so good; what an inspiration!

Total miles: 12 miles

Total Mileage so far: 74.5 (of 100)
Total Funds Raised so far: $210 (of $300)

Inopportune Moments

The universe is conspiring against me. Three signs of it:

1. Pilot lights went out on my gas stove and oven three times in one day.
2. My car died.
3. 3 of 3 friends I was supposed to hike with on Sunday bailed on me (it's okay, team; I know homework and boyfriends and parties happen!)

Fortunately, all of this happened to coincide with the 48-hour time period that Alan snuck home for the weekend from Portland where he delivered a load on Saturday. So for the most part, crises were averted.

HIKE #3: ANNETTE LAKE


Rainy days in the Northwest.
After I awoke to sorry-I'm-bailing-on-you texts on Sunday morning, I rolled over and promptly went back to sleep, bummed out as all heck that my plans for the day (group hike out east + stopping in North Bend afterward for the Sound to Mountains Bike Festival, for which I'd gotten several comp tickets) were shot. While I certainly enjoy being out in the woods alone, it's just plain not safe; the fact that it's black bear hunting season in Washington now doesn't help. Anyway, Alan wasn't originally planning to come along for the day's festivities, but being the Personal Hero Boyfriend he is, he pulled me out of bed and said he'd go with me.

We got a later start, and the weather was plenty cool and rainy (really, Seattle, really? It's August. Why has it been 55 degrees and overcast for days? The weather's the same as it was in February), but we made good time on the Annette Lake trail - a nice amble through old-growth forest, past a few little creeks and waterfalls, and ultimately arriving at a small little mountain lake, cupped by three big peaks, which were pretty much completely encased in fog. The sun emerged for approximately 45 seconds when we first arrived at the lake, but was promptly beat back into submission by the clouds and the onset of a gentle rain.


Woohoo, summer in my rain jacket!


Miles: 8.5ish

Alan hiked in his Hawaiian shirt. (One of several in his possession.) We have an ongoing...conversation?...about his enthusiasm for Hawaiian shirts. He noticed that I'd left this particular one within easy access in our apartment, which I'll venture to say was a complete accident on my part. Inevitably, wherever we go together when Alan dons Hawaiian shirts, there will be some woman who will smile wide and call out to him all swoony-like, "Hey, nice shirt!" I've tried to explain that it's a different sort of compliment if (when, always) the woman is elderly, but no matter; I always get a big, smug grin from him in the wake of these exchanges.

I think it's a losing battle. Either way, the shirt certainly brought some color to an otherwise fairly uniform landscape of greenery and fog. When we came back down from our hike, we got malts and milkshakes and other yummy diner grub at Scott's Dairy Freeze in North Bend before meandering over to the Bike Festival. There, we met up with Cam, Avey, Jeff, Kate, LC, and other assorted friends, several of whom had ridden their bikes all the way from Seattle(ish) to North Bend...crazy impressive. (Someday I won't be such a scaredy cat when it comes to riding long distances on my bike.) There, we hung out in the grass, listened to live music, and picked blueberries. I fell in love with U-pick blueberry farms in Ohio, but I have to admit, the backdrop of this one was a little more awe-inspiring than any other blueberry farm I'd ever been to.



Overall, the day wound up being a great success.


That's Mount Si in the background!
Total Mileage so far: 22.5 (of 100!)

It's not too late to help out!

WTA Hike-a-thon Reports, Part I

First of all, a huge, huge thank you to Mike, Kate, Melissa, Duy, and Chris for their amazing generosity in helping sponsor me in the WTA Hike-a-thon! You guys are absolutely fantastic, and I cannot thank you enough. We are six days into the month, and I am at an unbelievable 42% of what felt to me like a somewhat ambitious fundraising goal. THANK YOU!
(Linky at the bottom of this entry if you want to help out, too.)

HIKE #1: SURPRISE LAKE


Technically began on July 31, so I can't count the hike in toward my Hike-a-thon miles, but the hike out was on August 1, and I'll write about it the whole shebang here. Most of our crew left early in the day, but my trusty trail compadres Camba and Jenica were both down for a little bit later start; morning work shifts, errands, etc...these are the same terrific two with whom I'm frequently counting shoe boxes at 7 a.m, so I swear, it's not that we're just lazy bums who didn't want to get up early to hit the trails.

I hadn't backpacked in a long time; the last time was when I was still in school, when I could just borrow gear from Oberlin's virtually unknown Outings Club (translation: tons of awesome gear and gas funds always available...college was great). Fortunately, REI looks out for me, too, and so I was able to rent a backpack for free, and take out my new Half Dome tent for its second outdoors excursion.

The hike up was hot (in Pacific Northwestern, that's 78ish Fahrenheit), but as is always the case with Camba and Jenica, the company was great. I forgot how much harder it is to hike with a giant backpack! Silly me. We got to the lake and didn't see our crew's camp right away, so we asked some other hiker passersby whether they'd seen a group of hooligans, some bearded. They shrugged, said not really, but that there was an inflatable dinosaur with an arrow a little ways down the trail.


"That's probably us!" Cam replied. And sure was. We found our people frolicking by the lake, leaping off boulders into the crystal clear chilly water, making music (leave it to Jeff, Mr. Superhuman Treadmill Climber from my Ragnar report to haul a guitar all the way up the mountain, in addition to his backpack, tent, and other gear), and having a good time.


Jeff leaping into the lake. Kate and I jumped, too.
For all intents and purposes, our group had a great evening hanging out. The weather was muggy but decent. We made food. Mark had brought a portable fishing pole and caught himself a nice big stick. We sat around and drank and sang and generally were merry.


Surprise Lake by twilight.
That's where the good times went downhill. It started raining. It didn't stop. I stayed out of my tent hanging out with Jenica and Cam and Jeff in the rain until late, until all of us were soaked (and, in my case, chilled) to the bone. Got into my sleeping bag sopping wet, slept like a rock, and awoke to Lizzie yelling that there was a chipmunk on my backpack just outside of the tent. Turns out the little bastard had chewed a hole through the fabric of my pack to get at an empty sunflower butter packet and some tiny corn chip morsels. Left the entire back of open trail mix twenty feet away on the ground alone.


The hike out was a foggy one, but an enjoyable one. We stopped on the way home at a tiny little diner (really, just a big table in the front of a convenient store), but they had exactly what I'd spent all morning craving: breakfast food and a chocolate milkshake. I wolfed down a big egg scramble and went home a very happy woman.

Miles: 9ish total, but 4.5 toward Hike-a-thon


HIKE #2: MASON LAKE/MOUNT DEFIANCE


This one was just a day hike. I had to work until noon, but Wayne and I took off from Seattle right when I got off. We were on the trail by 1:30 (I LOVE THIS PLACE) and up to Mason Lake a few short hours thereafter. The trail is shared with a large stretch of the Mount Bandera route, which Alan and I had done several weeks ago - though I could already tell my hiking legs had developed some strength since then. I had less trouble on the uphills. The weather was sunny but really hazy; the trail proffers great Rainier views, but the haze was too great to see it.


Instead, we checked out the gorgeous wildflowers along the way - fire weed, lupin, Indian paintbrush, glacier lily, fox glove - and shared great conversation, as we often do out on the trail. Wayne's lived all over the country, but he's been working in the outdoor industry in Oregon and Washington for awhile now, so it's wonderful to pick his brain and hear his stories about various mountains, trails, Northwest icons.


We picnicked at Mason Lake, where I enjoyed the sunny rocks for awhile before taking a long dunk in the lake. Swam over to the other side and back, saw a salamander and a crawfish, and had some tasty snacks before picking up and moving on in our attempt to continue to the summit of Mount Defiance. Somehow, we got off trail in a mini boulder field, and wound up following a narrow, unmaintained trail that eventually led us into a mosquito-infested swamp. Always up for adventure though, we thought to ourselves, Ah, but surely if we just bushwhack through this brush right here, we'll find the trail! And so off we went into the trees and marshes and brush. No trail. But...surely, just over this ridge, we told ourselves. And still no trail.


After meandering off-trail for quite awhile, we finally decided to back track all the way, pretty much, to Mason Lake. There, we figured out where we'd gone wrong and got back on track - but by that time, we were pushing time. We made it up a little more than halfway up the mountain before the clock nabbed us and we had to turn back. "Don't worry, Lady Defiance, we'll return to you soon!" Wayne called out as we turned around and made our way back down.


Drove home into a stunning sunset:


Ah Washington State, how I love thee!

Miles: 9.5ish total

Can you spare five bucks for the trails of the Northwest?
Total Mileage so Far: 14 (of 100!)
Total Funds Raised so Far: $125 (of $300!)