What's Your Dream?

As you all know I have been training like crazy for my first ultra marathon. And in my training I decided to use a full marathon as a training run. So I chose a nice easy flat course, Blooms to Brews in Woodland, WA . It is a beautiful country course with lots of flowers and country fields. You even get to run buy a vineyard or two.  There were only two downsides to this who race. First, there is an inner loop that you have to run and you can see the runners on the loops from miles away. Which is neat at first then daunting later when you realize you still have that far to run!  The second is that the whole course is on the road but then there is a mile of rough gravel road at the end of the race. The course description was a bit short on how much gravel there was. Other than that, this race is very well organized and very beautiful.  This race didn't go well for me though. At mile 18 my ankle popped and caused me to be in an extraordinary amount of pain. I pushe...

If you like hiking then you'll love Kendall Katwalk, it's an 11 miles round trip with a 2600 ft elevation gain. Sounds hard but it's one of the easier hikes that I have done here in Washington. There are wild flowers, wild Alpine Blueberries, only about a mile of rocky hiking but easy small rocks with an even trail, a couple open meadows, old growth trees, creeks and even a lake if you are in shape!  (What the rocky section looks like) The the jewel of this hike are the mountain views. You get to enjoy the mountain views about 50% of the time.  (One if the views on the way to the top) Once you reach the top, your breath will be lost from the sheer beauty of the mountains and valleys, not from the hike itself! Once you reach the Katwalk it's a good place to rest and soak up the views. You can continue on to a lake about another mile ahead or turn around, the Katwalk is the 5.5 mile turn around point. To go on you may camp down at the lake.  Sadly the photos do not do it ...