June 25 - July 1

Monday: One of the girls only has doctor clearance to ride a stationary bike, so I stayed inside for today's workout and ran on an elliptical while she biked.  20 minutes; I don't know how to count that for mileage so I won't!

Tuesday:  Today was the rainest day ever!  I had a lovely day sitting in bed reading a book--truly, a nice way to spend a day!  Most of my plans were thrown out the window because of the weather, but I did attend the final all-comer track meet.  I spent most of my time helping at the long jump pit, then I stupidly tried to pretend that I could long jump and nearly injured myself because I didn't bother to warm up first.  I'm going to regret that decision for the rest of the week!

Wednesday:  Day one of regret!  I was so sore I could barely get out of bed, but I was determined to run today.  I started slow, and it actually did feel better once I warmed up.  We were back at Iller Creek again, and this time we went up on the ridge route.  Some of the girls did the loop, some of the girls got confused on the turning point, and some of the girls thought that two of the girls continued up to Rocks of Sharon--so I went up looking for them.  It turned out that the two in question did the loop correctly, which is a good thing since I couldn't find them at Big Rock!  I, of course, ran to the top and worried the whole way back down--but it was a nice long run of 5.5 miles.

Thursday:  Today I took Blaze to Mount Spokane and from the Cook's Cabin TH out to the top of 110, then up 160 to the summit of Mt. Kit Carson, then across to Day Mountain, then down trail 130 to the Kit Carson Loop Road and back to the TH.  I was really hurting today, but I had Blaze in his harness so he could help me out!  It's a little like cheating when I put him in harness, but today I needed it!  I even found one last morel on the way down 130--too dried out to keep, but a morel nonetheless!  6 miles.

Friday: The team was back in the Dishman Hills, and we did a repeat of last week.  I was still sore, so I just did the basic loop.  We also tried a team service project today: Weeding the native plant garden.  Most of the girls deserted before we even started; the rest deserted after 15-20 minutes.  We'll have to work on this!  However, we did get two big bags of weeds with only a handfull of girls, so that much was good.  2.5 miles.  In the afternoon, I met Jeff to drive south for a weekend backpack trip in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness.  I've never been there before!

Saturday: The first part of the trail paralleled the Wenaha River and was really easy.  Then we had to cross the river and we had a good climb up to approximately the 6,000' level.  The trail became easy again, and quite scenic besides: ridge hiking with amazing views of the surrounding mountains and lots of spring flowers.  Some meadows were practically solid blue with larkspur; others were covered in lupine.  The tricky part was finding water.  We wanted to camp at about 10 miles in at the first reliable water source, but there was already a boyscout troop there (interestingly enough, the same boy scout troop we met at Kirkwood Ranch over spring break).  Then the next water spot had campers, then the next water spot...and we hadn't seen a soul all day until it came time to find a camp!  It turned out that all of the people we saw had come in on a shorter trail near Diamond Peak.  The good thing about our extended hike was that we got to see a bull elk that we wouldn't have if we had camped where we wanted to.  We finally got to Clover Spring and found reliable water (a hand-carved tree horse trough!) and a good place to camp.  Another group of three later camped nearby.  It ended up being about a 12-mile day.  Then things really got interesting--I hadn't even finished dinner when the thunder storm hit--accompanied by a torrential downpour!  Tuesday may have been the rainiest day ever, but this was the rainiest evening ever.  I had to finish dinner, wash my dishes, brush my teeth, and hang my bear bag (a very important detail: there was bear scat everywhere!) before I could finally get into to the tent.  It took a bit to warm up, but then I slept just fine--and it quit raining by morning.

Sunday:  The hike out should have been quite easy, considering the fact that we'd hiked 12 of our 20 miles on Saturday.  However, today's trail proved a little tougher.  The first part really was easy--more ridge hiking among wildflowers (including white and yellow lupine, which I've never seen before, and red columbine!) and a net elevation loss.  Then we reached the Rattlesnake Trail.  The first part of the Rattlesnake Trail is easy, but once it starts its descent it turns into a monster.  This is a prime example of a trail that needs some work!  It shows signs of a major burn within the last five years or so, and I don't think it has seen a bit of trailwork since then.  It's also excruciatingly steep--my knees were screaming and my quads were quivering by the end of it.  Then came the really rough part--the Rattlesnake Trail comes out at the Panjab Campground, but our vehicle was four miles up the Wenaha River Road.  I dropped my pack, took the keys, and ran up the road to get the car.  The first ten minutes of running were brutal, but after that it was actually okay--and probably good for me, considering the pounding my legs had just taken.  It felt good to really warm up all of my muscles.  Of course, the last ten minutes of the run were back to pure agony again.  I think this is good training for Cutthroat!  It's also good training for Hike-a-Thon: Registration opened up today, and that was one of the first things I took care of when I got home!   

Weekly mileage: running = 18; hiking = 20