Monday, June 15, 2015, 8:18 pm

6.11 mi, 581 ft gain, 1:15:03. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 red #2.

We stopped at Olney Creek for the dogs to take a dip before continuing on towards the hills. I decided to take a different turn this time. The one shortly after crossing the small bridge at the bottom of the hill. I’m not sure I’ve been on that road before, maybe once a year or two ago.

It was fun. There were a couple shorter off-shoot roads that we went on as well. One had some tall grass and flowers growing on it. The dogs had fun running through them. The road ended at a logging landing, but some tracks from heavy machinery continued a little farther.

I wasn’t concerned with pace, with the upcoming race on Saturday. I looked around a bit and let the dogs sniff around too. There were lots of deer tracks on and around the landing.

I felt good on the run back to the car, imagining myself on the final miles of Rattlesnake Ridge 50k, running on the Snoqualmie Valley trail. If I stick to my race plan, the pace should be similar too.

Average HR 127 bpm.

 

Tuesday, June 16, 2015, 6:55 pm

4.16 mi, 37 ft gain, 34:55. Around town, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

Feeling pretty well today, as far as tapers go. More visualizations of the final 9 mi of the race. I took the pace up a little bit today.

Average HR 138 bpm.

 

Wednesday, June 17, 2015, 5:58 pm

4.91 mi, 186 ft gain, 1:12:54. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1 & up Olney Creek, solo. Altra Superior 1.5 red #3.

I’ve been getting kind of bored running the same routes around town and in the tree farm. But I want to keep it pretty easy for the taper. I had an idea recently about running up Olney Creek from one of the bridges, possibly all the way to the next one up stream. Today I decided to check it out.

It was a lot of fun. In the water, out of the water, rocks, sand, logs, fish. The rocks under water are quite slippery, but I managed to stay upright. There were a couple places where the creek splits into more than one channel, and one was completely dry. Some of the “rapids” were no more than a few inches deep, while nearby pools were 3-4 ft deep with that crystal blue colored water.

I went a bit over a mile upstream before turning around. I didn’t have the time, nor the inclination to find out how far it was to the next road today. Travel was relatively easy, with few blowdowns to navigate and only a couple places where the water was over my knees.

I didn’t bother emptying out my shoes before heading back to the car. There was quite a bit of sand and small gravel, but it wasn’t too bad for the short trip.

I wasn’t the only recent human traveler through the creek bed. There were at least two other shoe tracks, probably anglers. I also saw all kinds of deer tracks.

Looking at my track on Strava, it appears to be another 1.5 mi or so to the next bridge.

Average HR 116 bpm.

 

Thursday, June 18, 2015, 5:54 pm

4.81 mi, 183 ft gain, 1:08:03. Kellogg Lake Tree Farm gate #1 & up Olney Creek, solo. Altra Superior 1.5 red #2.

I had so much fun yesterday, I decided to do it again today with the dogs this time. They weren’t sure what was going on at first when I started wading through the water upstream from the bridge. After a little coaxing, they joined me.

The dogs had at leas as much fun as I did. We didn’t go quite as far today, though. They both love the water, but Vida is sometimes tentative to go into water where she can’t touch bottom. Once she’s in or if she’s really motivated to get a stick or something, she’s just fine.

Once back to the bridge, I took short look downstream to see if it was passable in that direction. There were a lot of blowdowns crossing the whole creek bed in the first few hundred yards. I’m not sure about beyond that.

I cleaned out my shoes before heading back to the car this time. I sat by the water, pulled off one shoe at a time, swished it around in the water to try to get the sand and gravel briefly in suspension, then dumped them out. Then I rolled my socks down to my toes (putting wet Injinji socks back on sucks), swished my feet in the water to get the sand off and out, rolled them back up, swished around again to get the sand off the exterior, then put my shoes back on and headed out.

Average HR 118 bpm.

 

Friday, June 14, 2015, 4:01 pm

3.18 mi, 28 ft gain, 25:30. Around town, solo. New Balance MR10v2.

Last taper day. I ate shortly before heading out, so my HR was elevated, probably by about 10 bpm. My lower legs just above my ankles were a little tight. They loosened up before too long.

More visualizations of race day. I felt pretty good besides the early leg tightness.

Average HR 148 bpm.

 

Saturday, June 20, 2015, 7:33 am

50 km, 6439 ft gain, 5:20:03. Rattlesnake Ridge Run 50k, solo. Altra Superior 1.5 Red #3.

I had a great race. I stayed fairly conservative going over Rattlesnake Ridge and back. My split was maybe a couple minutes faster than last year. I made up most of the 11 min improvement over last year on the last 9 miles. I’ll post a more detailed race report soon.

Average HR 153 bpm.

 

Sunday, June 21, 2015, 6:17 pm

3.62 mi, 944 ft gain, 1:13:37. Reiter gate #2, with dogs. Altra Superior 1.5 Red #3.

I forgot about the terrible Sunday traffic westbound on US2, so I didn’t run where I had planned.

It’s getting pretty overgrown with grass and blackberries on parts of this route. Fortunately, the creeks are still running in the area, so the dogs had plenty of water to drink and cool down in.

I found some more old 4×4 trails up the hill. I ended up going much steeper today than I had planned, which ended up meaning a lot more hiking than running than planned as well. That’s ok. Just getting moving and keeping it a relatively easy effort was the goal.

Average HR 117 bpm.

 

Weekly totals: 56.9 mi, 8370 ft elevation gain