Girls Gone Wildwood

John dropped me off at Saltzman and I ran home I mention to Susan recently that we should try running the same route a few weekends in a row and see if we can get faster. The idea of running the same route bores me, but the challenge of getting faster spikes my curiosity. I thought I would give it a try this weekend while Susan was at the coast and I had some flexibility by working from home on Friday and Monday. just in case I forgot The route is pretty simple, Saltzman - Wildwood - Birch - home, which is ~10 miles. Each day I ran about an hour after I woke up. Friday was the first day I ran, and around mile 13 a mountain biker almost ran me over on Wildwood, which completely startled me since bikers are not suppose to be on Wildwood. I would of thought the adrenaline rush would of made me faster, but Friday was my slowest day, 1:42:5. On Saturday I was able to shave a little off the time, but not much, 1:41. I took Sunday off and went to yoga. On Monday I ran a little

View south from Cape Falcon A few weeks ago (it's May 13 as I write this, but I've back-dated the post to reflect the date I ran) I was at the coast for the weekend, so I did the spectacular Cape Falcon trail and continued north until I hit the very top of the hill, then turned around for about 10 miles out and back. An inaccessible black beach While the trail to Cape Falcon is gorgeous, north past the cape the trail gets even better. There are fewer people and more stunning views of tiny, empty crescent beaches, distant headlands and dense, craggy forests. More craggy coastline The trail is soft and narrow, passing over creeks and climbing up and down some good hills. With a high point of about 1,000 ft, I say the elevation gain of this route is somewhere around 1,500 ft. Striking red rock and black sea arches At one point I caught sight of the most massive tree I have ever seen outside of the Redwoods in northern California. It was so shockingly huge th

Flowering currant Sally joined us for a Sunday run. She had never run more than nine miles before... and stuck with us for a full 15! It was fun to take her out on a tour of our usual trails, seeing the beauty of springtime blossoming with fresh eyes. She also challenged our speed a few times. Great run! Trillium past its prime Birch - Wildwood:  .22 Wildwood (mile makers 7.5 - 12.75) - Maple: 5.25 Maple - Firelane 4: 1.79 Firelane 4 - Leif: .21 Leif to Koenig: .55 Koenig - Wildwood: .14 Wildwood (mile markers 14.20 - 7.50) - Birch: 6.7 Birch - 53rd: .22 Total : 15.08

We spent the weekend in Sun River, near Bend, and scoped out the top trail for our weekend run. Deschutes River Trail system map-- looks so simple After a little bit of online research and looking through the William Sullivan (best hiking book author for Oregon and the Pacific Northwest!) book for the region, we started at the Meadow Picnic area. River at the trailhead Ideally we would've run to Benham Falls for an 18-mile out-and-back, but time being tight as always, we planned to run an hour out and then turn around. Sign at the trailhead Despite the simple trail map, we got lost pretty quickly after the slough. We lost sight of the river, turned left at some shotgun shells in the sparse, dry pine woods, and when we crossed a road we realized we were lost. Ann's getaway car When we finally made our way back to the trail we recognized, we saw the wooden stake with a stick-figure hiker; those, and signs that simply said "trail" were our clu

Seasonal waterfalls - soaking us on the trail  After logging a lot of miles in Forest Park training for the Gorge Waterfall 50k , we decided to take a few weeks and run some other trails.  And as is typical for springtime in the Pacific Northwest, the weather is a little crazy. Two weeks ago we were running in hail and snow, a week ago we were in t-shirts and sun, this weekend it down poured while we were running and of course cleared up as soon as we were done.  raging punch bowl falls Our incredibly wet run took place on the Eagle Creek trail. I have hike Eagle Creek for years, but this is the first time I have been on it in the Winter / early Spring. I am normally too busy snowboarding to do any winter hikes, but thanks to my broken wrist I have become a more obsessed runner. I was surprised to see how high and raging Eagle Creek was, from all the early snow melt off. This also produced a lot of seasonal waterfalls and higher creek crossings. The Eagle Creek trail hugs

Sometimes, for the really long runs, it pays to take a day off work and make it an event. That's what we did on March 22, just eight days before the Gorge Waterfalls 50k, for our longest training run. We were supposed to do it on a Monday a week and a half earlier, but with Ann's awfully torqued back it wasn't in the cards. Brand new shoes in a painful, screamingly bright color way Even though it was soon before the race, since we're not the speediest runners anyways, I didn't notice any ill effects. Instead, we had a great time spending the day running in an accumulation of hail, ending with a soak in Ann's hot tub and delicious salt bagels. Sounds like a vacation to me! Sign post at the start: Newberry Road John dropped us off at Newberry Road, the far north end of Forest Park. From there we ran to Springville Road, down to Leif, and back up on Waterline to Wildwood. After that, it was a straight shot to Birch and back to Ann's house, for a g

Showing off our Trail Runner Nation performance enhancing Kokopellis at Elowah Falls  Last Saturday Susan and I had the pleasure of running the Gorge Waterfall 50k . There is something magical about running in the Columbia Gorge, the lush green moss covered rocks, old growth trees and all the amazing waterfalls. I have no idea how many waterfalls we passed but just to name a few: Wahkenna, Fairy, Ocola, Weisendanger, Multnomah, Oneonta, Ponytail and Elowah. Since it was an out and back we got to pass all the waterfalls twice, and you  definitely see things on the way back that you didn't see the first time. At one point on the way back, Susan thought we had gone the wrong way because things looked so different.  Getting ready to start the race! We couldn't of asked for better weather, it started out cool and sunny and when we finished  it was around 70 °F. After our very, very wet North Face 50k , we were ready for a race with good weather.  The race starte