progress - racing and a hiking/driving adventure

I raced (more than just "ran") the Fremont Oktoberfest Brew Ha-Ha 5K this morning. It's in my neighborhood so it was an easy jog down. I saw lots of friends - some I hadn't seen in a while and some I saw just last week at Cle Elum Ridge 50K.

When I got there they were pretty disorganized. I decided to do day of race sign up, along with about a thousand other people, and they ran out of chips. They announced that you had to yell out your number as you finished and someone would write it down. Good thing I had my Garmin 305 on to keep all my data! I got in a line that looked right, until someone said it was for M-Z. So I got in another line; this one turned out to be for the porta potty. Finally I got in the A-L line. I was still near the street at the top of the stairs at Adobe Plaza. I looked down and saw Barefoot Jon talking to James Varner and Alison Hanks, so I ran down to say hi. Before I knew it I was registered and ready to go. As I was hanging out I saw Tory and Roy Klementsen and chatted with them a bit. They were there volunteering for the Street Scramble. Finally the race was about to start so I headed up to the street. The horn went off and we headed down 34th. As we started to head uphill, Jon passed me - kicking some barefoot ass! I felt pretty strong but could tell it had been a while. We headed down towards Latona and made a hairpin turn onto the Burke Gilman trail. As we headed back towards Fremont, I kept trying to wander over to the dirt part on the east side of the trail. Not often that one gets to run southward on that part so I took full advantage! As I felt my body tighten up, I gathered to my center, as Danny says, and relaxed. Also focused my foot landing so I didn't supinate too much. Glute medius and quads felt good. My stomach was a little nauseous, reminding me it'd been a while since I raced. By mile three I was mainly trying to not throw up and just let it be what it was, not focusing on finish time. After we went under the Fremont Bridge (not on the trail) we had to run down the weird stairs to the trail. I walked down them so I wouldn't fall - they are irregular and "artsy". I resumed running to the finish. A guy instructed us to head left to remove our chips. I told him I didn't have a chip and asked who I was to give my number to. He looked confused and then wrote it down. I have no idea if I will be listed in the results and know I didn't win my AG as I saw Karen Buttram hanging around waiting for someone. She looked like she had finished at least a few minutes prior.

My finish time was 26:27; not bad for coming back! I ran into Jon when I went to look for water and we wandered into the Tshirt line. We found out they were just cotton, but wandered up to the front to ask for sure. One of the guys said they only had small, so Jon got one for me. I sort of felt bad for all those people standing in line waiting, but I still took it. Nothing fancy - I don't think I would have stood in line for it. I hope they all got one though, if they wanted one that bad.

I wandered back towards Wallingford, running into Matt Manges who had just flew in from Colorado where Circus Contraption was on tour. Finally I made my way back home to food and a shower massage. Nice workout and social time to boot!

Yesterday Donn and I headed east to Vantage to hike in the Petrified Ginko forest. We climbed up a jeep road for about 2.5 miles. It was super windy and very exposed. Didn't see any ginko trees as we didn't go through the interpretive center. We mainly just wanted to hike the desert. On the way back down, we detoured off the road towards the Columbia and got a little out of the wind where we ate some lunch. We enjoyed the view of the Columbia for a while, and then bushwacked our way, as it were, back to the road and eventually the car. We then headed back west, where we took another detour to get to Taneum Junction Road. I wanted to show him where I had been for the Cle Elum 50K last weekend. We got to the campground and stayed on road 33, as the sign said Cle Elum, 14 miles. Soon it turned into a forest service road and a lot of climbing. About two miles in I heard a clunk clunk clunk. I stopped the car and Donn jumped out to see what I was dragging. He laughed and said Uh-oh. Your muffler is hanging on barely. I got out to look and sure 'nuff, one of the extension pipes had broken (probably the one with the hole in it) and the muffler had hit my rubber bumper, leaving a nice mark in it. It and another pipe were hanging on by a rubber clamp, which we easily cut off. I threw the muffler in the back and continued towards Cle Elum. We got to a junction with no sign of which way to turn. Donn said right so I went right. Immediately (and fortunately) I saw the back of a sign; as I passed it and looked, it told me Cle Elum was the opposite way. I turned around and continued a little up. Finally we started seeing a couple more folks, and within 45 minutes or so, houses and a paved road. Eventually we ended up on a major arterial and kept following that by pure instinct, and got to South Cle Elum. We kept at it, ending up in Roslyn at the Village Pizza for a well deserved pizza and dark Roslyn beer. Yum!! After our bellies were full we headed back over the pass to home. Car ran much better without that pesky muffler and wasn't too noisy either. Still I have to get that taken care of before my trip to Vancouver BC next Friday, as the border patrol will most likely not appreciate my noisy arrival. What an adventure!!