“Never leave your wingman,” is what I always think (and sometimes say) when my race running partner starts to fret about us sticking together during a race. In this case, it was my 11 months older, 52-year-old sister JoDee, who took up running in April and now, fewer than four months later, was running her first …
Category Archives: Running
Scrapy Sounds, Stinky Smells and…Serenity
If my same-size sister and I had known that the canoe our neighbors agreed to loan us weighed nearly as much as one of us, we’d have handled things differently. Our plan: to lift, load and transport the dark green Coleman X Scanoe to our destination seven miles away: Cornet Bay, part of Deception Pass State …
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South Whidbey State Park
Last week, for the first time during the decade I’ve lived on Whidbey Island, I made my way to South Whidbey State Park, located between Greenback and Freeland. The Washington State Parks site says, “South Whidbey Island State Park is a 347-acre camping park with 4,500 feet of saltwater shoreline on Admiralty Inlet. Park features include old-growth …
Red Devil Challenge 25K Trail Run
A few months ago, my cousin Steve suggested we run a marathon. I’d been burned by stuff like this before, the event suggester talking me into it, then backing out. Plus, I’d already been there, done that (marathon), so I tried to find something different that might work and did: the Red Devil Challenge 25K …
Becoming Bloomies
Last summer, my 28-year-old, moving-back-to-Spokane niece Vanessa and I agreed that this year, in 2015, we’d run Bloomsday together. For many runners, this is a sort of bucket list event, primarily because it has so many participants. In fact, it’s the biggest 12K (7.5 mile) race in the country and the fourth largest timed race …
Spend the Day at Bowman Bay
Bowman Bay is one of several great locations within Deception Pass State Park where a person, couple, family or group could easily spend an entire day. Others include Cornet Bay, West Beach, North Beach and Pass Lake. According to the Deception Pass Park Foundation site, “Before receiving its modern name, Bowman Bay was known as “Reservation …
Little Cranberry Lake in the Anacortes Community Forest Lands
The Anacortes Community Forest Lands, which, according to their web site, include 2,800 acres of land and 50 miles of multiple use trails, are one of my favorite places to trail run and hike. Our trail running group typically alternates between Little Cranberry Lake and Heart Lake, which means I’ve had a number of opportunities …
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Meet Me…on the TTT
Anacorteans (or whatever those who live in Anacortes are called) are very familiar with the Tommy Thompson Trail, which, according to Anacortes Magazine, “consists of approximately 3.3 miles of paved trail for pedestrians and bicyclists between 11th Street and across the train trestle to March Point,” and, according to Trail Link, “follows an abandoned corridor of …
Spice Up Your Running Life
After completing the Whidbey Half Marathon for the fourth time in 2011, I realized that I needed to spice up my running life. To prepare for that race I’d trained the way I’d always done; alone for every workout while following a combination of Hal Higdon’s Half Marathon Training Guide Intermediate and Advanced versions. Race day was …
Summiting Mount Erie
The view from the top of Mount Erie on a clear sunny day is one of the best in the area. From the parking lot just south of Heart Lake, follow the road up about 1.7 miles to the summit, a trip that takes about ten minutes. According to my GPS watch, you’ll climb from …
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