Today was the spring Soaring Eagle run, much different than the winter Soaring Eagle run which was cold but not wet for once.   Today was pretty perfect with tens around 50 when the runs started and blue skies for the most part.  I was originally planning to do the 5 at this event then decided to switch to the Half Marathon and then last night decided to go back to the 5 since I had run at Chirico on Wednesday morning and I’ve got Sun Mountain 25k coming up in three weeks.

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That was quite a hill!

Today was the first ever sanctioned Tiger Mountain Trail Run put on by Northwest Trail Runs.  It was run on the backside of Tiger Mountain and had distances of 5k, 12k, Half Marathon and 50k.  I had originally signed up for the half but given the nearly 3000′ of climbing and the 9:30 start time I had my doubts I could get done in time to take our new pup, Lira, to the vet by 1 p.m. so I switched to the 12k course.   As usual I arrived early to do registration and we had a rocking reg team with Suzanne and Ann both of whom I had worked with before so things went very smoothly.    The 50k started at 8:30 with about 25 runners, the half at 9:30 with about 100 and finally the 5k and 12k started at 10:00 with a total of about 115 runners and we started on a different loop than the other starts.

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The last event of the  Winter Trail Series  was held yesterday at Soaring Eagle park in Sammamish, the Frost Eagle event which this year was neither frosty or mucky for once.     As usual I arrived early to help with setup and registration before the run. Everything went pretty smoothly given that we had a few no-shows on volunteers and both of us doing registration were running too but we got it taken care of and both got ready to run before the start.

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A bit of mud and water today

Today was the second to last event in the Winter Trail Run Series – the Interlaken Icicle Dash.  Not too well named this year, should have been the Interlaken Mud Run given the conditions of the trails after all the rain of the last few days.   As usual I was there early for setup and registration which was a bit damp but not freezing cold like some of the other events have been.  The warmer weather was good because I wanted to run this event after bailing on the St. Edwards run due to cold a few weeks ago.

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photo by Takao Suzuki

The Bridle Trails Winter Running Festival is one of my favorite events each year and I’ve had to miss out the last few years due to SIBO but this year I was finally back.  The run has three distances – 5-mile, 10-mile and 50k either done solo or as a team.  I chose the 10-mile distance this year and figured that if needed or if the weather was horrible I could drop down to 5-miles.   The weather turned out to be perfect, temps in the high 30’s and no rain for days so the trails were in great shape and not a huge mud-fest as often happens at this event.  Of the years I’ve done the run the weather and conditions were the best this year far and away.   Since conditions were so good I was also able to run it in my Luna Osos and Tabus with a wool Injinji sock underneath it all.  For once I wasn’t the only crazy person wearing sandals, another runner who I know was wearing the same setup for the 50k.

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Another week for the Winter Trail Run Series, this time the Solstice run held at Seward Park in Seattle.   Even though we are nearing the darkest day of the year the weather turned out to be pretty good for this one.  It was cold when I arrived to help setup in the morning but it wasn’t raining and the sun was starting to rise over Lake Washington.  We got setup done and registration went  smoothly for the fairly large event of about 260 runners.

Two distances today, 4.2 mile and 10k.  I’d done the 4.2 mile as a walk/trot a few years ago but this time went for the 10k since my mileage has been increasing.   I wore my Luna Osos with the Tabus today again since the trails in general are smooth and easy though the single track, as I would find out, was pretty darn muddy and covered in a lot of fallen trees which made for quite a few hurdles.   10k meant three laps of the course so I got to jump over the half dozen trees three times.   My feet and tights were covered in mud by the end but my feet stayed very dry with the Tabus.

The run went well, I started out fast and was shocked to see during the first lap I was pulling down a sub-8 minute pace most of the time.  The slight uphills and some crowding slowed me down a bit and after the first lap I pulled back a tad.  Ended up finishing in 52:54 which was pretty decent, my second fastest 10k ever and considering my fastest was dead flat I was pretty happy with this time.   In the overall standings for the series I was at 18/202 before this event and hopefully will go up a notch after today since I did beat at least one runner that was in front of me.   Next up the Absolution Run at St. Edwards on Jan 3rd.  I’m only doing the 4 mile at this one though may shift to the 8 if I’m feeling up for it but St. Edwards still scares me after my hamstring injury there a few years back.