I went for an FKT this weekend, the Ancient Lakes Touch all the Lakes challenge. There are 20 named lakes in the Quincy Wildlife area, and the challenge is to physically touch them all as fast as possible.
I tried the route with a friend the week before, but we missed a lake (my fault), and it would have added at least six miles onto our run to go back and get it.
So I set out again today, this time alone. I started out at the upper Ancient Lakes trailhead, veering off onto the dirt track beside the canal. I took the canal all the way to Flat Lake and then to Burke Lake. I then took a dirt road to Evergreen Reservoir, which I crossed on a shallow section and then ran cross-country until Cree Lake. I touched that one and then ran up to bag all small lakes in the upper cluster.
I missed one — Crystal Lake — and had to backtrack a little, then I dropped down to Dusty Lake. I crossed over the coulee and down to Ancient Lakes. I hit them all pretty quickly but drew a few heads from some people camping on the shore when I charged straight past them into shoulder-deep reeds and plunged into a lake.
I climbed up the waterfall section from Ancient Lakes, and that’s where I ran into a bit of trouble. I was unable to scope out the best approach from my position and thought I needed to climb high up the boulder field in order to put myself over the waterfall. When I got up there, though, I ended up on a slick slope of pebbly dirt, scree, and loose rocks. One rock the size of my head dislodged and slid down, narrowly missing my right foot. I had to dig my fingers into the dirt and shimmy across the slope, balancing my weight between three holds at once and staying close to the ground. I eventually made it up above the waterfall and from that point could see a better path I could have taken up. Oh, well! At least I didn’t hurt myself.
The final four lakes were much easier. I touched Judith Pool, H, Lake, and then accidentally got my feet soaked in Quincy Lake since I sunk down into the reeds. I bagged Stan Coffin Lake last and then sprinted back up to my car.
I ended up clocking 17.28 miles in 4 hours and 32 minutes. It was a good day to be outdoors! Now time to take a nap.
In honor of the first day of spring, I thought I’d share a post of a winter ultra challenge I did.
I decided to go for a new kind of challenge this past December: a treadmill distance challenge. I’ve always struggled with the mental aspect of treadmill runs so I thought it would be a good training opportunity during the colder months. Truth be told, I was shooting for 100 miles but I definitely underestimated both the mental and physical challenge of running so long on a treadmill and am still amazed that I made it the 100 kilometers–62.47 miles total according to my prison-style calculations:
I started the run at 11:55am on a Saturday, my four-year old son cheering me on in between movies. I took a few breaks to make myself some ramen, make Mac N Cheese dinner for him and drop him off at his dad’s. (Yes, I’m well aware a purist might say since I got off the treadmill it doesn’t count but I doubt there are many ultrarunning purists out there anyway and I choose to count it since I didn’t stop my watch).
I drove to a gym about an hour north of my hometown to be able to run with a friend. She joined me at the gym a few hours after I’d arrived and we commiserated over the treadmills being unable to continue after an hour of moving time. This is where documenting the mileage on my arm became important, because every time I took too long running to the bathroom or accidentally stopped the run, the mileage would revert back to zero.
There were definite pros to the indoor ultra, though. All the snacks I could ever want were within arm’s reach and a bathroom was also easily accessible.
By the time I was nearing 40 miles, I was hitting a major wall. I actually took a little nap on the treadmill before accepting defeat and going to my friend’s house to rest for a few hours.
The next morning, we finished the run at the gym and went for a celebratory soft pretzel and beer. I was sore for a week but happy to push to my farthest distance to date.
To say I’ve been unmotivated since the Iron Cap incident would be an understatement. I thought for a while it might take years to work back up to an adventure run, especially solo. I did buy an emergency bivvy that now lives in my running pack as well as a bug net for my head during peak mosquito season (that seems to be over now, thankfully!).
I had the past week off work and spent it relaxing with my son, camping, and working on getting some things we still needed for our new apartment. By the time the weekend rolled around, I was feeling pretty good and had gotten some solid runs in during the week, including a ladder workout and a trail run where I saw two big cats.
Two big cats 😉
I decided to go for an FKT, as one does. I did NOT want anything with bushwhacking or too much scrambling, and since I have a huge crush on Mt Rainier, I decided to go for the Northern Loop/Spray Park Figure 8 loop. This loop has approximately 20 miles of trail on the Wonderland that makes a loop with the Spray Park trail and the Northern Loop trail. I’d already completed the Spray Park loop back in late October, so I felt fairly confident of the terrain.
I dropped off my son with his dad and set out for Mowich Lake at 8pm, arriving just before midnight. It was extremely foggy and misty, and when I set out on the run the visibility was so poor that I ran straight into Mowich Lake. Luckily I only barely got my feet wet, but I laughed at myself, turned around and went back up the trail towards Ipsut Pass. The rest of the run in the midnight hours was fairly uneventful. I listened to Tooth and Claw, a podcast about animal attacks, and jogged at a comfortable pace. When I hit the big climbs, I walk-jogged. Just before daylight, my waist light abruptly shut off, leaving me in total darkness. I had to pull out my phone and use the flashlight to fish around for the other battery pack.
I didn’t see anyone until the high point near Sunrise, where I found a group of very wet hikers. The visibility up on these high ridges was maybe fifteen or twenty feet in places.
Peek-a-boo
I made the turn onto the Northern Loop Trail (the trail itself is not a loop but a 16-mile point-to-point, and I suppose it is assumed one always makes a loop with the Wonderland). I’d researched this trail in advance and knew there was a big climb coming up, but HOLY MOLY. Windy Gap certainly lives up to its nickname of “Winded Gap.” By the time I reached the crest of that ridge, I was totally gassed. I had to keep shoving down feelings of despair. I’d planned to take the first big climbs easy and then try to run the next two as much as possible, but there was very little running happening here. It was cold, windy, and slippery. I somehow caught my shoe on an upturned root and it wedged itself through the fabric, slamming me to the ground in a forceful faceplant. I had to pry the shoe off the root and then stubbed the toe on my other foot moments later. Something must have happened to my gait, as I kept stubbing the same toe over and over.
Anyway, on my way down from Windy Gap I saw the only other trail runners I’d meet that day. They were doing the Northern Loop, and I found out later that they set the FKT for that course. I guess it was a day for FKTs!
There were more people on the last stretch of the Wonderland before reaching Spray Park, and I saw some families out for leisurely hikes. There were a few “easy” miles before the final 3500-foot climb to Spray Park. That’s where I started to lose it. And by “it,” I mean my sanity. I’d been awake for about 32 hours at this point. I started imagining I was talking to one friend, and then another one. Vivid daydreams spun through my brain, and I entertained them. I knew they weren’t real, but my mind was staying occupied and distracted from the pain of the run. At one point, I wondered what “that sound” was, only to realize it was my own labored breathing. I felt like I was floating above my body.
The windchill at the top of Spray Park was the coldest I’d felt all day, and had I not had my nice new rain jacket I would have been in trouble. I would estimate it was about 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The fog was oppressive. I thanked some hikers who let me pass on the downhill and then joked, “Isn’t Rainier lovely today?” They laughed.
The next few miles back to Mowich Lake were some of the most painful, probably because the end was so close. The terrain is a bit rooty and rocky, and I passed a few hikers with skis strapped to their packs. I wondered where they’d been skiing and envisioned myself asking them but I don’t think I did.
“Are you good?” one of them asked.
“I’m in a lot of pain,” I replied. I gave a sheepish half-smile and hobble-jogged off ahead, then promptly caught my foot on a root and went down hard. My phone went flying. Thankfully, I was able to jog faster than their walking pace and stay ahead of them, although I did see them in the parking lot when I made it back to my car.
I’m definitely glad I did this run, but the lack of long runs leading up to it made it more challenging. I’m quite certain I could easily have done it faster with the proper training, but it was still fun to set my first FKT (they are always borrowed, so feel free to improve my time and set your own record!). I actually started getting interested in setting FKTs in the first place as one of my new running partners commented that a lot of routes don’t even have a women’s record yet. So, who knows. Maybe I’ll try and set a few more before the winter sets in.
Since summer has picked up here I’ve upped my training quite a bit in preparation for Wonderland Attempt 2.0. If you have been following my blog, you might remember my spectacular Wonderland DNF in 2020 due to a cougar encounter. Anyway, I completed (and CRUSHED), the volcanic Loowit Trail with a friend on the Fourth of July and had our plans set for Wonderland July 29-August 1.
I thought we’d planned better this time. I really did. We divided food and other supplies into portions for each day, planned an itinerary and a camping spot to be able to do the first 30 miles in one day and then the final 60 (ish) in one push. The only problem was, all the campground slots were already filled (except the 30% remaining first-come first-served) when we finalized our dates back in April. I thought, no problem. There are three front-country campgrounds at Mount Rainier National Park, so three options to choose from. We also were planning on arriving on a Thursday afternoon. The worrywart in the back of my head piped up there might be a problem, but I told her to shut up as there usually never is.
Dear reader, there was a problem. We drove around the park for three hours looking for camping but everywhere was full. Dejected and exhausted, we were forced to make a hard decision–look for lodging elsewhere that night or return home. We ended up returning home, and it probably is good my friend was driving or I might’ve done something stupid.
We strategized about ways to save our weekend, and I commented that I felt like a “sack of potatoes” after all the carb loading and not being able to do our big run. My friend was tired, but I woke up the next morning at 5am without even setting an alarm and feeling like I needed a good suffer-fest. And suffer-fest, I got.
I’d been checking out the FKT website and had noticed this route, which is a 26-mile trail/traverse through the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. As of today, there are no women listed on the site and although I’m not too interested in setting records I thought it might be fun to go for one or two. I joked that, “I might go for the FKT. If I don’t die, I’ll get it.” Let’s just say that remark is no longer funny. Having checked out the route beforehand and watched a YouTube video of some hikers’ experience, I felt adequately prepared and downloaded the gpx track from the FKT website to my watch and saved a screenshot of the route description to my phone. My pack was already prepared for the Wonderland hike with my waist light, emergency blanket, first-aid kit, snacks, rain jacket, water filter, and other essentials. I did forget to grab the extra food I’d been planning to add at the beginning of the run, which I didn’t even notice at the time.
I started the run feeling tired and settled for walk-jogging at an easy pace, knowing I had at least 8000 feet of climbing ahead of me. I was still optimistic when I hit the first few lakes, but lost about half an hour of time wandering around when the trail disappeared. I finally found my intuition had been right in taking me where it looked like the trail just completely vanished, but there was just a tree blocking the path. I instead tried out a boulder field for awhile before realizing that was definitely not the right way to go.
The route was more or less clear until I reached a large boulder/talus field. My watch told me I was right on track and I knew I had to head for Iron Cap Peak, but due to my slow moving I was unable to tell if I was headed the right way and kept second-guessing myself on which peak was Iron Cap. I considered turning around, but that would crossing two mid-sized boulder fields and I assumed the trail would be much easier from the peak judging from the description (the website states “Roughly follow the tracks and with some light bushwhacking while descending you end up just under Iron Cap from where you can easily continue to Tank Lakes and finish the loop.” I kept that phrase in my mind, but it became obvious that my definition of “light bushwhacking” and the author’s differ by quite a bit. It’s that, and I kept losing the trail due to following cairns that were not meant for me. (I have no idea where they were headed, but they seemed to be headed nowhere). I kept ending up on a cliffside or steep brushy slope and had a few falls that could have been much worse but still were not ideal. My running pants completely split down the backside, and my legs were beginning to give out since I hadn’t had enough to eat and the stress of getting lost and nearly falling several times was wearing me down.
Brief moment of panic
I’d been communicating with my friend via Garmin Inreach, and I let her know I was okay but would have to spend the night. I curled up under some young fir trees and put on my rain jacket, then tucked my emergency blanket under my head, shoulders, and feet to try to keep a taut barrier from the mosquitoes. Unfortunately, it did not work. They kept swarming and finding a way in. They were like a dense cloud, and I would breathe them in and cough. I tried using my bug spray, but it was not enough to deter the great mosquito army. I settled in for a miserable night. I finally figured out (a little too late) that I could wear my rain jacket and then use my windbreaker like a bug net to shield my face. That did work, but my eyes and throat had already begun to swell.
Nighty-night
Morning could not come fast enough, and I set off to find the trail before 5am. I continued with the “light bushwhacking” for several hours until it seemed like I was so close to the trail but couldn’t find it. I felt so weak and totally spent, I laid down on a rock and put the emergency blanket over me to ward off the mosquitoes. I texted my friend I was still looking for the trail and not doing well. I found a Rice Krispies treat in my pack I’d overlooked the day before and filtered a little water. Hooray!
I did find the trail finally, and the next section up to Tank Lakes was much easier comparably. It was uphill, but easy uphill with a friendly grade. My spirits were light. I said hello to a marmot. My friend texted me that she was sending SAR to get me. I told her not to do that! I was doing okay. I felt confident the worst was behind me.
There were a few more confusing cairns near Tank Lanks and seemingly multiple boot paths to get down the talus field to the Necklace Valley trail, but nothing as difficult as what I’d already been through. I descended slowly and was delighted to find the Necklace Valley trail and the old Necklace Cabin waiting below. This is where I found the first people I’d seen since early the morning before. I apologized about my pants and asked if they might have an extra granola bar, then I started crying (but no tears would come since I was so dehydrated). The woman tried to fix my pants with tape, but that didn’t work so her partner gave me an old pair of shorts to cover up with. They gave me an apple, a Clif bar, and some trail mix that I lined the pockets of the shorts with. I certainly looked like a hot mess jogging down the trail, with huge men’s shorts over my pants, hair wild and loose after my hair tie got broken and lost, and eyes swollen almost shut from mosquitoes. I looked like a wild mountain woman!
Yikes.
It was about eight miles from Necklace Valley down to my car, and I took the trail slowly, walking on all the technical sections and slowly jogging the rest. I finally made it out by 3pm and it was the happiest I’d ever been to see my car! In hindsight, I think I did almost everything right. I did forget to pack additional food, but that was an oversight as I thought it made it into the pack but didn’t. The one thing on my list to do now is to upgrade to an emergency bivvy and throw that useless emergency blanket in the trash. I certainly hope I never have to spend an unexpected night in the forest again, though.
So happy to be at home safe, showered, and some pizza in my belly.
My birthday was in the beginning of March, and while I’ve been low on blogging I’ve been high on adventures. I did something I’d never done before and took the day off work to run my age. What should have been 28 miles turned into 30 as I’m not good at maps. I have tried to use caltopo several times, but while the maps are decent I accidentally cut corners and the elevation gain always shows as zero, which of course is impossible (if anyone has any pointers, I’m all ears!).
Trying to run 30 miles in early March in the foothills is tricky, and I ended up doing a lot of road miles and connecting three local trail systems at lower elevation. I had a few friends join me the first bit and even got to open a birthday gift!
The view from my birthday run
I’ve never liked making a big deal of my own birthday, but why not? In the words of a great philosopher, “YOLO.”
I’ve been ramping up my training to get ready for the summer season and some big epic runs, and I PR’d at the 5K last week (I think) so I think my switch to focus on weight lifting and speed workouts is helping. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on one’s perspective), the snowpack throughout the Cascades this year is above average and some of my favorite trails will be buried for at least another month.
The spring has been mild and the wildflowers here are even more spectacular than usual. Happy running!
Or do something you might not love but at least tolerate.
I am awful at resting. I’ll be the first to admit I have a running addiction, but it becomes a serious problem when an injury comes along and I refuse to let my body heal. I had a bad ankle sprain in October, so bad in fact that I got it X-rayed to make sure I hadn’t sustained a fracture. I did decently well with resting but have noticed a little joint stiffness that contributed to a plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinitis flare-up in the opposite foot the past month.
I ran a 50K “just for fun” at a state park, and I had to stop several times in the last 9 miles to stretch my calves. That night my Achilles was so inflamed that it looked like a red and white rubber band on the back of my heel. I’m pretty lucky not to have ruptured it, to be honest. For someone who relies on athleticism to ward off depression and anxiety, though, taking a rest day isn’t so simple.
I have found an outlet in painting some of my running adventures. Although I may not have real talent, it gives me a certain sort of solace to commit an adventure to artistic memory.
In better news, I have been going to physical therapy for my PF and AT and running is starting to look promising again. I also have a birthday run planned next week, so stay tuned,
I love long distances. If I’m going to sign up for a race, I want to get my money’s worth, and that translates in my brain to committing to the longest distance available in the event.
When I first started running, I fell in love with the half marathon. It was a distance that was long and hard enough to feel challenging but not so long that I wasn’t able to enjoy the rest of the day. I’ve run very few fast 5Ks and 10Ks, and it has often seemed like the longer the distance, the better the race for me.
While living in Peru, I ran my first races and traveled several hours to a town in the Colca valley for a half-marathon. It was common for these events to be largely communicated via Facebook and word of mouth, but I had heard from several sources that the race was a half marathon, so I went. The town was about 12,000 feet above sea level and the race was a road and trail looped course through several villages in the area.
I showed up on race morning, full of excitement, only to have my hopes dashed by the “men only” race category. Women were not allowed to participate in the open 21K category, but there was a 7K option for them. I was furious. I’d trained and mentally prepared for a half marathon, not a 4-mile sprint. Of course, there was nothing I could do to protest as the categories had already been established. One thing is for certain, though: I was not prepared to race a 7K and hadn’t traveled for hours just to find out my uterus was the one thing keeping me from running a half marathon.
So I signed up for the 7K and lined up with the men. I tried to quell the butterflies in my stomach, but I knew if there was one race I had to finish, it was this one. There was no way I could defy the race directors and townspeople only to collapse mid-race. Collapsing mid-race seemed like a real possibility, though. I was inexperienced at running at high elevations and had only run a handful of half marathons with significantly flatter courses (all of which were much better marked and had at least several female participants).
The first half of the race was easy as it was mostly downhill, but the male runners dropped me early on. I ran alone, relying on the occasional spectator to point me in the direction of the runners. When the uphill climb started around the halfway point, I passed a runner or two. Minutes later, though, I saw an ambulance speed past with the runners in the front seat. I was again alone, and I struggled up the remaining hill accompanied by a police motorcycle. The finish was at a dirt track, and I had to do a lap to officially cross the finish line.
I was the last person to finish the race, but I finished. There were at least three runners who dropped out and had to hitch a ride with the ambulance back to town.
I didn’t feel like I was trying to prove a point or anything. I just wanted to run the race I’d planned for and so I did. I know that equality in running has made quite a few strides in recent decades (pun intended, ha!), but we still have a long way to go.
I lived in Peru from 2015-2018, which is where I took up running more seriously. Before I was a runner, though, I was a hiker. Every time I saw a peak I wanted to see what the world looked like from its summit, and when I arrived in Arequipa the plane flew over Volcán Misti, an impressive 19,101 feet above sea level, I just knew I had to climb it.
I was coming from a city just six hundred feet above sea level and the longest hike I’d done was when I had gotten lost on a trail near Mount Baker, Washington and ended up scrambling over a boulder field looking for a lake that I’d already passed several miles earlier. I’d also never gone on the hike that required much more than a light daypack. Nevertheless, I met several like-minded expats in Arequipa and we formed a small group of would-be summiters.
For its altitude, Volcán Misti is not an overly technical peak and could be summited in just one day but two are recommended so mountaineers have a chance to acclimate before the final push the next morning. If you do a Google search of climbing Misti, you will find many stories of people succumbing to altitude sickness or getting lost and having to turn back.
I was the least experienced hiker of my group and had had the least amount of time to acclimate to the altitude in Peru, so if anyone was going to perish in the attempt (or just fail spectacularly), it was me.
We drove out of the city towards the volcano, and even by the time we’d reached the start of the hike I was beginning to feel lightheaded. As we got our gear together (over five liters of water per person plus cold-weather gear and camping supplies), I noticed what looked like giant bees with stingers landing on our arms. I guess “noticed” is a bit of an understatement, as I I freaked out and started swinging my arms frantically and dancing back and forth. Our guide told us they didn’t sting or bite, but somehow that knowledge did nothing to assuage my fears.
We finally set out in the late morning, and although the hike was a relatively short distance every step proved arduous. I wasn’t used to hiking with a pack, and we were carrying all the water we would need to drink and cook our meals as there are no water sources on the mountain. The altitude and loose, sandy terrain added to the difficulty of the hike, and we trudged on at a slow pace and took breaks every thirty minutes.
We made camp just about an hour before nightfall, and our guides cooked a delicious soup from the water we’d lugged up the trail. I’d hiked up in leggings and a T-shirt, but the temperature began to drop rapidly with the setting sun, and we all retreated to our tents sometime around seven or eight p.m. Something strange happened when I tried to fall asleep, though. The best way I can describe it is almost like hyperventilating. I kept taking short, shallow breaths and my heart pounded in my chest. I don’t think I slept at all the entire night.
We were up by two a.m. the next morning and hiking by three. We left our heavy packs and tents behind us with the intention of summitting around sunrise and then returning to break camp and hike back down to the van. Soon into the hike, a woman from our group and I fell behind the other hikers. We kept getting turned around in the dark, so one of the guides stayed behind with us while the other advanced with the rest of the group. Sunrise came and went, and by the time we reached the group they’d already reached the summit and were waiting down below in a saddle. The guides wanted to leave, but they ended up agreeing on letting my friend and me go to the top while the main group went down to break camp. The final climb looked like just a hundred feet or so from below, but it must have taken us another twenty minutes.
When I finally reached the top, the feeling was incredible. I’m not sure if it was the lack of oxygen, the bits of chocolate consumed on the journey up, or the sensation of accomplishing something incredible, but I felt immense. I felt like I was on top of the world.
We were only at the summit for several minutes, but that was long enough to look down into the live crater spewing out sulfurous fumes and pose in a Life Aquatic-style photo with my red beanie (in addition to being a hiker and trail runner, I am also a huge dork).
So it was on the summit of Volcán Misti that I discovered that I was capable of so much more than I could imagine. This is one of the sparks that lit the flame for my passion of trail running, and after a few years of pursuing fast times and PBs on the road, I have returned to my roots in search of glorious peaks and a new kind of challenge.
I started getting much more adventurous with my trail running in spring and summer 2020. I like creating loop courses so much that I’ve gotten myself into trouble multiple times by underestimating the distance or elevation gain of a particular route. In late May, I decided to go out for a double (running in the morning and again in the afternoon) as I was trying to add more miles for GVRAT (The Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee). My plan was to connect two local mountain trails to create a loop of approximately 15 miles. The problem was, I had been on only part of one of these trails and did not have a clue just how long the course would be (my app was wildly inaccurate and I failed to double-check the distance before I left). I arrived at the trailhead at 2:30 in the heat of the afternoon and started off on a slight downhill.
As I ran up and down the high ridge trail, a thunderstorm blew up out of nowhere and due to how exposed the trail was I felt my only option was to continue down the trail to get off the ridge. The temperature dropped and rain pelted down, and I hadn’t brought a rain jacket or even a hat. All I had was my running pack, my cell phone, and a few snacks. My phone was out of range, so calling someone for a ride was out of the question.
As I didn’t want to ascend the trail again in the storm and I was completely soaked, I decided my best course of action was to leave the trail and run into the neighboring town. When the forest road met the pavement and I saw mile marker number six (signifying I had six more miles to go before reaching town), and my cell phone died from waterlogging, I started sobbing. I was freezing from the cold, my legs were raw from chafing in the rain, and I didn’t know how (or when) I would be able to contact someone for help. Reaching town was not even a guarantee that I would be able to find a phone or a ride (I am embarrassed to admit that this fiasco occurred during the COVID-19 outbreak). I tried flagging down a few cars but none of them stopped (I honestly do not blame them due to COVID and the fact that there was a known fugitive who was hiding out in the Wenatchee National Forest at the time).
I didn’t see any cars for miles, but mercifully one stopped and rolled down the window.
“Can I borrow your phone?” I asked, trying to act as nonchalant as possible.
“Do you need a ride?”
I tried to refuse, but I was really cold and was running out of options at that point. I dutifully accepted and climbed in the backseat, a bit relieved to find a young girl sitting next to me.
I ended up getting back to my car thanks to the kind strangers who took pity on a dumb trail runner in the rain and lightning storm.
I decided to tell this story even though I’m extremely embarrassed by it because I hope it can help someone to avoid the mistakes I made.
Trail running can make forests seem smaller than they actually are, and if anything goes wrong on the trail it can be many hours before one can reach civilization.
Due to this (and other) scary experiences on the trail, I’ve decided to start carrying extra gear on nearly every trail run, and ESPECIALLY those where I run solo. I always bring:
A Garmin InReach satellite communicator
A waterproof first-aid kit
An emergency blanket
Bear spray in an accessible pocket
A water filter
A jacket
Some other essentials I usually bring are electrolyte tablets, gloves, a backup charger for my phone, extra food, and socks. The list may vary depending on the location, but I have decided that carrying a bit of extra weight is infinitely preferable (to me) than being unprepared in the backcountry.
Here’s to many more adventures and smart decision making!
It’s officially winter in the Pacific Northwest. Many of my favorite trails are covered in several feet of snow, and the closest local trail system closes from December through April to allow for mule deer migration.
I have historically always hated winter. I don’t like driving in it, I don’t like running in it, and I don’t even like being in it. As I’m nearing my thirties, I also feel like I get colder more easily than I used to and much prefer running in the heat.
However, if there is anything COVID-19 has taught me this year, it’s that life is what you make of it. You can sit back and wait for better weather or for a better job or for things to get back to “normal,” or you can forge on ahead. Last winter was one of the most difficult seasons I’ve experienced, and when I whined about not having enough food for groceries, a running friend (lovingly) said something that will always stick with me: “You have to figure out how to find the joyland.”
In this time of political unrest and COVID and snow and ice, I am choosing to forge on ahead. I bought Microspikes and will keep going this winter. I also have made a few trips to the track for speed work sessions. I’m hoping to work on my speed during the fall and winter to be able to come back and run the trails faster and more efficiently in the spring and summer. The most recent workout I did was a “ladder” (200 meters – 400 meters – 800 meters – 1600 meters, and then those distances in reverse to work “up” the ladder and then back “down”).
Ascending the ladder is mentally challenging to keep going further than you did the past interval, and then descending again is physically difficult to eke out some last reserves of speed from fatigued muscles.
I’m trying to learn to love the winter, and stay tuned for my adventurous summer 2021 goals.
Ultra Slogging 