Sunday Runs

Every Sunday morning, rain or shine, I meet at Seattle Running Company at 7am to lead a hearty group of individuals out to our local trails. Lately it's been much more rain and snow than shine. The Cascades, and even our smaller local foothills, have been hammered with an abundance of snow this year. Last Sunday I thought it would be fun to head out to Tiger Mountain and run the 16 mile fat ass loop. I knew that there would be some snow, but I had no idea that we'd be breaking trail through two feet of snow. We cut the loop short, but it still took us over 3 hours to cover 11 miles. I was bonking so badly breaking through the fresh snow that I started seeing stars and thinking that I may pass out. The two other runners with me were real troopers. Even as I started to lose my cool, they pressed on and kept a really great attitude. Today, we opted to stay a little closer to home by running a Cougar-Squak out and back. We covered 19 miles with about 5000 feet of ascent. Along the way we encountered just about every winter weather condition that exists in the Pacific Northwest. We got a lot of rain, a little snow, and enough warmth that one guy even shed his shirt. It was just another crazy day in this wild Washington winter. I guess running in these conditions builds character, right?