I needed a city escape so badly that on Thursday night I was dead set on camping in Maryhill solo for the weekend. But when I woke up on Friday morning my rational side thought better of it. Instead of staring out over the Columbia River, I spent my Saturday finally decorating our new house. Being an adult is hard sometimes.
As a consulation to irrational Animal Sarah I planned to run to the top of Mount Si after the cross country race on Sunday. raced my arse off at 10:45am, did a quick shake out with the team, and then I was off to meet my friends, Josh and Dave, downtown and we headed to the mountains.
My friend Josh is one of those ultra trail runner types. I think he owns minimal shoes. He's done a 50k that involved running up and down a ski mountain. Dave is chronically fit without trying. And I realized as the ascent started that I'd grossly underestimated this adventure.
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| taking pictures to catch my breath |
Mount Si is 4 miles and 4,167 feet up. Steep switch backs with very little break. We'd change places to lead. After the first 1.75 we started taking walking intervals at random. By the time we reached the top, and found snow, I was a couple switch backs behind. My back was spasming and walking was hard enough, thank you. We made it to the top in 1:05, me more like 1:08.
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| first snow sighting of my year! |
At the top we watched the fog and clouds roll across the sky showing us pieces of the view. When we were too cold to sit any longer, we hobbled back down. Or I hobbled…they seemed fine.
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| views, always worth the journey |
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| awkward self timed photographic proof we were all there… |
This was a perfect fast escape to breath fresh air and have a very real check in on my fitness level. A run like that keeps you honest. I said I wouldn't do it again, but even now I'm plotting my revenge on Mount Si.
