2019 was a pretty good running year for me. It was the first year I'd trained consistently, hitting over 1200 miles for the year. Though my first attempt at a 50k resulted in an unfortunate DNF, my trail running was getting stronger and I started working with a coach, which resulted in much smarter training.
2020 had so much potential. I was signed up for another 50k, one that looked beautiful and that I thought I had a good shot at completing. I had some soft PRs for 5k, 10k, and half marathon that I wanted to break. Maybe more interesting mountain routes would happen in the summer. I was ready for the first step, a flat half marathon at the beginning of March, perfect for PR breaking...
...and it ended up being one of the first runs to be postponed due to COVID-19. Specifically, the city pulled the permits. It was optimistically postponed for mid-April, when I was supposed to be out of town. Of course, neither one of those things ended up happening. I was in a bit of a mood after that, feeling like all of the training was pointless because it was unclear when races would ever happen again. Around that time, my cat also got really sick, and his conditions prevent me from being away from him for very long, so that has put some limits on the mountain adventures as well.
I got over the mood, kind of, but my running felt like I was just executing a plan. Exercising outdoors definitely helped keep me sane, but it still felt like something was missing.
Ginger Runner Global Run
Some of the awesome registration swag!
I've never been a fan of virtual races. I'm not motivated enough to race if it "doesn't count," and usually the swag doesn't tempt me. So I'd ignored all of the virtual races that had been advertised... until GRGR. This time, it was the swag that caught my eye! The race t-shirt was a Rabbit EZ tee, my absolute favorite running shirt, and the "art pack" included a dozen postcards featuring race/outdoor photographers and artists (some that I knew) and proceeds would support them. Finally, the event itself would be a week of daily challenges with a cumulative goal for the total event miles to equal 24,901 miles, or the distance around the world. I also convinced a few other people to sign up so I'd have people to cheer on / commiserate with.
Day 1: Tour Guide
First thing Monday morning, I excitedly checked the GRGR site for the first challenge. Tour guide! The idea was for your run to show off something special and local. I decided to do a route highlighting my city of Kirkland, running from the marina downtown and following the waterfront up to Juanita Bay Park. I wanted to get this done as early as possible so there would be fewer people around, so I quickly got ready and rushed out the door.
Bad photo of a surprise coyote
One highlight of the run was a juvenile coyote I stumbled upon as I entered Juanita Bay Park. I saw this little long-legged animal gracefully leaping through the grass, and my morning brain thought it was a miniature deer at first! Then a bunch of rabbit went running in different directions. The coyote didn't seem very determined to catch them.
Juanita Bay Park, beautiful even on a cloudy day
Day 2: Tri Day
Day 1 was a surprise and a rush out the door, but by the end of that day, we'd figured out that by 10pm, you could get spoilers because the results entry form had been updated with the prompt for the next day. There would be more details in the video posted later, but the spoiler was enough to make plans for the next day, which I greatly appreciated. Tri Day meant three activities, including a run. Since I had to fit a workday in there somewhere, I did a quick 5k run in the morning, an easy neighborhood bike at lunchtime, and a yin yoga session in the evening.
Biking to Little Free Libraries
I'd tossed around the idea of doing a longer bike ride, like a distance that would be reasonable for a sprint triathlon, but I didn't want to wear out my legs too much that early in the week, so I opted instead to meander around my neighborhood, visiting a few Little Free Libraries to drop off books. I guess I was feeling a sense of adventure and took some short dirt and gravel trail connections that my bike was ill-suited for (but I did not fall down!).
Yoga with cat assist
Ended my Tri Day with a lovely Yin Yoga session live streamed from 8 Limbs Yoga. Well, mostly lovely. Some of those long holds are rough on runner legs! My cat was participating as well, laying next to my mat for a lot of the class. When I was doing frog pose, I was screaming inside my heart from the difficult stretch, and then I felt my cat gently lay his head down on my foot, and then I was squeeing inside my heart from the cuteness.
Day 3: Workout Wednesday
I groaned at Wednesday's challenge -- to run a 10k as fast as you can. I'd just set an unofficial 5k PR on Saturday, and my legs weren't quite up for another speed challenge, but I decided to at least try to get a time under an hour. My last 10k race was a few years ago, and I was just over an hour. I've long since had the fitness to run it in less than an hour, just not the right circumstances.
I did a quick race predictor calculation, and I wondered if I could run close to a 9 minute mile. The first mile confirmed that no, that was not going to happen, so I aimed for below 9:30 instead, which did. A 5k on a track is unpleasant enough, but a 10k on a track is pretty miserable. But it was the best place to run without having to avoid people or put on a mask in the middle. I normally never run with music, but it didn't seem like podcasts about letterpress, David Duke, or the Cleveland court system were going to be enough to keep me going, so I put a Fall Out Boy album on repeat.
Final time: 58:15. I'll take it.
Day 4: GPS Artiste
I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise that GPS art was coming. One guy did amazing GPS art everyday for his challenges! I didn't have a good way of doing anything too creative, since I never used routes on my watch (and Garmin Connect wasn't letting me publish them anyway when I tried), and my phone was too unreliable. In fact, I put my route on my phone as a reference, and I wasn't able to use it at all and had to do it from memory. So it's good that I went for simple. Hi!
I enjoyed seeing other people's work. Shawn drew a really cute bunny in a field!
Day 5: Photo Friday
Watershed Park
Friday's challenge was photography -- but specifically, for the photo qualities, not just the most beautiful subject matter you can find. We were encouraged to explore good lighting and composition and maybe drag our DSLRs out on our run. I am not at all into real photography and I was definitely not lugging my big camera with me on a hot run. So I just did what I could and took some phone photos of Watershed Park nearby. One cool thing was that since I was specifically looking for photo opportunities, I noticed that Mt. Rainier could be seen peeking over the trees from one point in the park! Later when I got home, I saw on NextDoor a report that a woman had stumbled upon a man in that park with his pants down being inappropriate. Glad to have missed that "unique photo subject."
Mt. Rainier peeking out between the trees
Day 6: Two Hours of Vert
I figured based on previous years that there were two challenges yet to come: vert and something about running 2 hours. Well, they combined them: how much vert could you get in 2 hours? I didn't have high expectations for myself, but I knew Shawn was capable of more than me. We did some negotiating and decided on Rattlesnake Mountain, which had about 2500 feet available, but there were always repeats at the top if needed. I knew the trail would be in decent condition and not too much of a killer, and I figured I could do about 2000 feet and 4.5 miles in the 2 hours.
Mt. Rainier and the beautiful clearcut of Rattlesnake Mountain
The hiking trail wasn't too busy, especially past Stan's Overlook. I brought a mask anyway to comply with the law and did have to put it on a few times. This was my first run in my new Salomon vest, and while I was thrilled with how much stuff I could shove into the front pockets, I wasn't used to how loose they were. A one point, not too long after I'd used my mask, I noticed that it wasn't with me anymore, and I had to backtrack to get it. But later on near the top of the ridge, it was missing again, and I didn't know how far I had to backtrack, so I kept going. Fortunately, no one wants to touch someone's used mask in these times, and I picked it up on the way back. And I actually brought three masks with me, so I was legal in the meantime.
North Bend and Mt. Si
Well, turns out I underestimated myself! I managed to get over 2700 feet of elevation gain, and for the last 15 minutes, I ran repeats up a short gravel road leading up to the Rattlesnake Mountain summit. And I think I had a fair shot at 3000 feet if the trail had gone up consistently instead of going flat and downhill once on the ridge. Shawn made it to East Peak and got close to 3000, and then we hiked down together. While there weren't many hikers on the trail, there were a ton of mountain bikers on the bike trail system that wound around the hiking trail. I found out later that someone I knew was up there, and our paths almost crossed at one point. The bike traffic keeps the parking lot extremely full, which may contribute to the lower hiking traffic.
Can't hit North Bend trails without a stop at Popeye's
Popeye's is the food stop after a North Bend hike. They actually had their chicken sandwich this time, so I had my first one! Pretty tasty, though I definitely would not have stood in a super long line for it.
Day 7: Free For All
The last challenge was to try to get as much distance as possible for the day, running, hiking, or walking. My legs were sore from the day before, but they had enough energy left to run. Getting started was the hardest part, since the soreness was very pronounced until after warming up. Shawn and I decided to split our miles into several runs, and we'd figure out how many we were going to do as the day progressed. Started out with a bit more than a 10k run, followed by a 5ish mile run in the afternoon. We figured out that he was close to 60 miles for the week and I was close to 50, so we did one final 3.5 miler before dinner to hit the mileage. It didn't feel like I had completely emptied the tank, but it felt like the right time to be done at that point. And that day, the participants did finish accumulating enough miles to go all the way around the world.
Week total mileage: 50.1 miles
Week total elevation: 4672 feet
Week total Type 2 fun: endless
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