Running in the Cascades

Soooo after my race I decided to do something completely random. I went over to the Seattle Ferry and went over to the far Western side of my beautiful state. I got to see the far tip of the state and a bunch of places in between I had never seen in all the years I have lived in the State. On the way out on the ferry you can't help but to see something so rare, something so seldomly seen, and not just by anyone, but I'm talking about a sight that many people from the State of Washington have never seen. That sight is the Space Needle seen from the water! Its quite the sight to see if you have never been to Seattle forget all the other attractions, they can wait. Get yourself on the Ferry and check it out for yourself its worth your time. The Cascades were amazing as well!! I got to see some of the towns I have always heard of but never actually seen. The scenery was so clear and you could see across the water to mountains across bays. Some of the towns were pretty interesting as you can see from the octopus I was hanging with in the picture. I tried out some seafood to see if there was any difference from where I lived. I must say the calamari is certainly more fresh up in the cascades. You know you are in for some great seafood when you drive up to a town with a rich scent of sea water and fish from the shore. The best part about most of the towns along the Puget sound and throughout the cascades is that you can get from sea to mountain top in nearly no time at all. The mountains had a little bit of snow on them as I found out in the middle of one of my runs.

I started on a nice trail out of Port Angeles and ended up coming out into the open without the shelter of the trees in the forest for a few minutes and I realized the drops of rain I thought were actually chunks of snow falling from the sky. I had been ascending for quite some time and had not realized the snow was falling so drastically. I had a few scares while running out in the trails on the Olympic mountains due to my foot still feeling kinda tender from getting spiked. The cut on my toe is fine now just messy with the socks if you know what I mean. From the pictures you can see that the run started off with nearly no snow then slowly it built up as you approached the peak. And no I did not run to the peak, hahaa I'm not that crazy there was too much snow out there and I was definitely under dressed for that kinda temperature. The trip around the cascades was refreshing, I needed a break from the thoughts of my race and the disappointing spiking that kinda put a damper on my attempt to run a PR, but now I think with a new mindset I can get back into my training and get ready for the USA 15k Championships coming up pretty soon.