Washington Running

A couple weeks ago, our family took a trip out to Washington state. It was a wonderful trip for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it was about ten degrees cooler in Washington than it was in Minnesota, and I work outside.

We saw lots of beautiful scenery including Mt. Ranier, various locations at Olympic National Park, and North Cascades National Park. We saw wildlife like elk, marmot, deer, sea lions, seals, otters, and a variety of small marine animals. We got to do several scenic hikes and drives as well as see a Twins vs. Mariners game in Seattle. We also had a chance encounter with my cousin and his family and got to spend time with some friends in Seattle. 

I also had some great running on our trip. On our first morning, I got onto my Garmin Connect app and mapped out a route from our hotel in Port Angeles. I saw that there was a trail along the waterfront that was only about a mile from our hotel, so I took off and ran through town and down to the water.

As I was running along the water, I saw something near shore. I paused and took a closer look. It was otters. Not something I see when running on the Douglas Trail in Rochester. 

The next morning I took my son with me and we drove to the trail this time, and more otters showed up along with sea lions, eagles, and herons.

I also got to go on a couple runs in Leavenworth, running through the mountains. 

My last run was the Renton parkrun. The course ran along a river and was mostly shaded. It was an out-and-back and it was very flat. At the half mile mark I took my first peek at my watch and saw that I was averaging a 6:35/mile pace. This was a fair amount slower than I was expecting, and I was hoping that I wasn't in worse shape than I thought I was. 

By the turnaround I was moving at a faster clip, and I finished the race in 19:13, a 6:11/mile pace. This happened to be my fastest 5K since May of 2021, so I'm feeling pretty good about my training.

The trip to Washington was awesome, other than me getting sick at the end and missing the last couple days of fun. Running there was great and running is going well in general. In my next post I'll give an update on how my training is going.