Rad Run // Issaquah Alps

Seattle has officially moved up to the top of the rankings of my favorite cities to run in after this one.

To really appreciate how awesome this run was I have to go back a little bit. Maybe two years ago I stumbled on Alistar Humphreys, an adventurer, and author from England. He writes a lot about microadventures, this idea of making an adventure out of something small. Instead of having some huge plan and three-day trip, he promotes taking advantage and control of your 5-9 life.

While I have a really cool job, as I often lament here, it can be very difficult to find time for adventures or even just runs beyond the usual seven-mile loop from my front door. Figuring out my own microadventures is motivating in the offseason but a struggle when I don't really have a 5-9 life during the season. It's more like a 7-9 life. With that in mind, I've really tried to take full advantage of these road trips where we are spending an extra day in different cities.

I've always enjoyed getting a chance to run in different places. That's one of the big perks of traveling for my job. I get to travel at least 10 weeks of the year. In the past, I've felt pretty limited in terms of where I could run based on where we stay, but recently - with the help of public transportation and Uber - I've started to branch out a little and look for adventures that are further afield.

This all started in Oakland of all places. Last fall we had a two-day trip to Oakland. Not really being too thrilled to run there, I decided to jump on the train and head to San Francisco to run. An awesome 15-mile run to and across the Golden Gate Bridge and back later and a microadventure running plan was born. I followed that up with a bus ride to Boulder to run up Green Mountain a few weeks later when we were in Denver, which you can see below.



With those to adventure runs under my belt, you can imagine my excitement when I found out five of our trips for this year were going to be multiple days, including a three-day trip to Seattle. If you follow me on Instagram, you saw that I enjoyed the extra day. Sometimes I still just run from the hotel depending on where we are, but when getting ready for this trip I came across an Outside article about the top Five Wild Escapes You Can Access by Public Transportation.

The Second one? Tiger Mountain in the Issaquah Alps.
Seattle has a ridiculously good public transportation system for adventurers, but the best trip you can take might be to Tiger Mountain State Forest. Located in the Issaquah Alps east of the city, Tiger has more than 70 miles of hiking trails, some of which climb more than 2,000 feet to the summit. You can get there from downtown Seattle by catching the Sound Transit 554 bus to the Issaquah park-and-ride lot, then take the paved Rainier and High School Trails to the Tradition Plateau Trailhead, where you’ll find a half-dozen routes up the mountain. The West Tiger #3 Trail is a stunner, offering a five-mile round-trip hike with views of Seattle and Puget Sound at the summit. The bus runs every half-hour during the day, and your one-time fare is $2.75.

I tweaked a few things about this but it served as the basic inspiration for one of the best road-trip runs that I've had in my eight seasons of doing this. I ended up cheating a little and grabbing an Uber from the hotel as it was an hour bus ride compared to a 15-minute drive. A few of these other places I've done public transport adventure runs, the transit has been around 30 minutes which works with my schedule. An hour bus ride would have made the timing tight so I decided to spend a few extra dollars to give myself more time to run.

I had the Uber drop me at Issaquah High School and ran two miles along a couple of different trails to Tiger Mountain. These trails were fantastic. Freshly fallen leaves mixed with the crisp smell of the evergreens was exactly what I needed after waking up a little groggy from the five-hour flight the night before. Any cobwebs were quickly brushed away by the multiple signs I saw warning of cougars and bears. I took a minute to read the do's & don'ts of cougar encounters...you know...just in case.

Once I reached the High Point Trailhead, I followed the West Tiger #3 trail as it snaked its way to the summit over three or so miles. On the way up I crossed back and forth from deciduous to coniferous forest. I was again treated to vibrant yellow leaves, bright evergreens, and the orange hues of a pine needle covered trail. From the base of Tiger Mountain, the trail was mostly double track. It reminded me a lot of the Wagon Train trail that runs from Young Harris College to Brasstown Bald in Georgia. This trail had more steep twisting switchbacks, but both are nice and wide with long sections that vary in pitch from gradual to reach out and touch the ground steep.

The scenery was ripped straight from the forest moon of Endor or maybe First Blood. I felt like any minute I was going to look up and see an AT-ST or an imperial shield generator base. That or I was going to get arrested for vagrancy by Brian Dennehy.

Seriously, tell me there's not an Ewok lurking around in here somewhere.

As I worked my way up towards the top the trail, the trail split in two - a more direct, and far more sketchy looking, cable trail - and a slightly more technical than the rest of the route single track. I decided to stick to the main trail and pick my way over the single track instead of trying my luck on the cable trail. This splinter trail was almost all loose rock and was much steeper. While it was a straight shot, the main trail looked more fun. This was a good call because just off the side of the main trail there were two view-point pull-offs that provided outstanding views of the mountains that spring up east of Seattle. After another few minutes of climbing, I reached the 2,522-foot summit of West Tiger 3.

Portrait mode is clutch 

The pull-offs on the way up were better viewpoints, as the summit was really just a small clearing with a sign and cairn. I took a short break at the top and exchanged pleasantries with some of the other people that had reached the halfway point of their hike or run. I saw two guys come up to the summit from the opposite end of the clearing and I decided to do a little exploring. My watch read 4.7 miles at the summit, so I figured I needed to get it to five before turning around and heading back down.

I dropped down from the summit and back into deep woods surrounded by towering pines. It nearly went from full daylight to pitch black in about 200 yards as I descended. I came across a sign that read West Tiger #2 -> and decided to see if that summit was within reach. I am notorious for this move by the way. I've gotten a death stare from Amanda more than a few times for saying "I bet it's right around this corner" or "Let's just got a little further and see what's over this rise". I got a little bit of my own medicine, but it paid off as I scrambled my way to the top of an "I'll just get to the top of this then turn around" reaching the top of 2757 foot West Tiger 2. This summit still didn't provide a great view as it had a radio tower perched in the clearing at the top, but it was still cool to say I tagged two summits on the day.

After snapping a couple of pictures I made my way back down to West Tiger 3 where I stopped to chat with a couple of the hikers that I had passed on my way up. I got very jealous of the two guys talking about going skiing the next day. That would be amazing. It was 60 degrees and sunny on these mountain trails and a couple hours to the north or east you can go big mountain skiing. Okay PNW. I get why people are so wild about you now.

After thinking about whether I could get out of meetings on Sunday to go skiing for a few minutes, I started the three-mile descent back to the trailhead. The trail was actually a little bit muddier than I realized on the way up, which made going down a little tense. I wore Saucony Ride 10s, which obviously don't have a ton of grip so I had to ride the breaks a bit in some sections to make sure I stayed on my feet. I ended up paying for that the next couple of days with sore quads, but overall the descent was pretty fun. I opened it up a little on some of the more gradual sections and worked on having quick feet on some of the steeper stuff.

When I reached the base, I spent a couple minutes at the large trail sign trying to decide which route I wanted to take back to the high school. I settled on sticking with the trail that got me there, figuring it would be at least somewhat familiar, which would hopefully diminish my chances of getting lost. I actually really enjoyed these trails. I don't know if I was anxious about making it to the base of Tiger Mountain or worried about getting lost on the way out, but I don't think I fully appreciated the approach trails I took. I made sure to right that wrong on the way back. I would imagine that Issaquah has a good cross country team because the trail access those kids have from their high school is epic.

I followed the Around Lake Trail and Bus Trail (there was an old burnt out bus off to the side) back to the High School trail which, appropriately, led me back to Issaquah High School. After grabbing the water I stashed in the dugout of their softball field, I decided to see if there was somewhere to grab a coffee close by. I settled on Issaquah Coffee Company, about 1.5 miles away. This was a great idea by the way. I hopped on the Rainier Trail, a paved/gravel path that runs through the town. While it wasn't the lush forest of Tiger Mountain it was still a cool little section to run. I passed through the downtown and saw the Issaquah Alps trail headquarters and a historic train depot along the way.

I reached my destination after covering 12 miles and tagging two summits over two hours. I went inside and ordered a Cougar Mountain latte and some cinnamon apple bread while watching a little bit of college football. P.S. - that might be my favorite thing about the west coast, it was like 10:30 a.m. and the college games were into the third quarter. I could completely get on board with prime time games ending at like 8 o'clock too. After enjoying my coffee and pastry, I grabbed an Uber and made my way back to the hotel in time to finish up my credentialing duties and head over to the local high school for practice.

I wrapped up a full day in Seattle with a trip up to Washington to see the Huskies take on Utah in what turned out to be an epic PAC-12 matchup. My next couple of days of running in Bellevue weren't quite as exciting as Saturday's Rad Run, but I'm still a big fan of running there. I was treated to a fantastic view of Mt. Rainier, so that was cool.

Like said, Seattle has definitely vaulted its way toward the top of the rankings for my favorite cities to run in. I'm really glad I decided to make the trip to Issaquah for this run. It was well worth the $40 I spent on Ubers.

Here's what the full run looked like on Strava:

Just in case you are wondering, here are my top NFL cities to run in.
1 - Seattle (obvi)
2 - Denver/Boulder
3 - San Francisco (Really Oakland since the 49ers are like an hour away now)
4 - London*
5 - LA - We stayed in Santa Monica

Honorable Mention - Houston - Shut up. Don't even say it...28...to...you son of a...Seriously though, I had a rental car and ran at Memorial Park every day. Everything else was concrete but Memorial Park was cool.

*We stayed at a place called the Grove in Herefordshire. It was freaking amazing. Bridle trails everywhere. One day I ran for an hour before realizing I needed to turn around. If you take London out then LA would be fourth and Chicago would be fifth.

Trestle Run: Night Racing

After what felt like a long two month stretch of August and September, things finally settled down a little bit. I missed the first race of the XTERRA season due to traveling for work but got back into the fall race season with the Rise Up & Run 5k that I recapped in my last blog and then a couple of trail races on back to back weekends. The first one was the Iron Hill trail night race at Red Top Mountain State Park, my first night race. I know I said that race recaps tend to be boring last go around, but since this was something a little different I figured I'd include it here.

Race Recap - Dirty Spokes Iron Hill 7.5 Mile Night Race
This was a pretty cool one. We actually ran Iron Hill earlier in the year. I ran pretty well there and had a nice bounce back after really struggling at River Gorge. It's a slightly rolling course - 3+ miles per loop - with nice wide trails that run along the lakeshore at Red Top Mountain. Not sure why it's named that. There is no mountain (insert shrugging guy emoji). Coming off of a good road 5k and knowing that this course suited me, I was looking forward to the race going in. Albeit a little apprehensive since I've never run a night race.

I wasn't really sure what to expect. I run with my headlamp a good amount in the fall and winter, but it's normally only for the first 15 or 30 minutes of my morning run until the sun comes up. I've also never run fast or hard with the headlamp, so I had no real feel for how it was going to be. The only real night run I've done was one at Magic Mountain with Ferenc a few winters ago and we were just running around, not trying to race. I figured I'd wear my Patagonia duckbill hat and pull my headlamp as tight as I could and just see what happened. Spoiler alert...it actually worked pretty well.

Wild Endurance is for the children

The fact that the race was at night made things a little wonky from a logistics perspective, but Amanda and I did our best to make a day of it. This race was on the Saturday of our Bye week, so that meant it was one of the few truly free Saturday's that I have from September to January (hopefully February).

We spent most of the day up in Chattanooga walking around and riding bikes to take advantage of the day. Around five, we started to make our way south to the park. We arrived about an hour beforehand, so that gave me plenty of time to warm up. That didn't take long because despite the mid-October date it was still 80 and humid. Once the sun set, darkness fell pretty quickly over the trails. I did a few strides just to try and figure out any last minute headlamp adjustments before heading to the starting line.

I don't know if it was the Red Bell or what, but I shot off the line and immediately into the lead. I was locked on to RD Tim Schroer's wheel (he was on his mountain bike leading the race). After a few minutes, I realized I needed to settle down and relax. Only being able to see a few feet in front of me made it a little difficult to judge effort, so it was all too easy to get sucked into following Tim closely. I tried to relax and find a rhythm and stay smooth through the first lap, but in all honesty, that ship sailed pretty early in the race. It rapidly turned into a hammerfest, where I was just going to be on the gas the whole time.

As I wound through the first lap I got a few cool glimpses of the line of headlamps across the lake in some sections. That was a really neat sight. In the spring, we ran this course in the opposite direction - and it was light out - so it was hard to pick out any landmarks. I knew there were a few bridges - two - or so I thought. Turns out there are four. That made for an interesting few minutes towards the end of the first lap. I was rolling pretty well thought the first lap and wanted to try and run negative splits, so I tried to stay on the gas into the second lap, but the humidity started to take a toll around five miles in.

Despite a real fear of blowing up, I ended up running fairly even and crossed the line in 44:14 for the win. It was an awesome experience. I don't know how much I'd love doing a night race on more technical trails, but I'd be open to giving it a shot sometime. This was a good way to dip your toes into it.



The best part of the race though...post-race smores

What I'm reading/watching/listening to/liking
Shalane won NYC!
What more can you say about this? After Boston, after all the close calls she's had, Shalane just went out and smashed it. It's great to see someone's hard work and dedication pay off like this. I was working and didn't get a chance to watch the race but I caught the tail end and really had to control myself to not go crazy when she dropped the 'Eff Yeah' when she crossed the finish line. That's 100-percent the Masshole in her and I love it.

Speaking of women crushing in it in the marathon, Gwen Jorgensen announced that she's stepping away from triathlon to focus on the marathon and people have been dicks about it. What a shocker right?

☑️ World Champion in Triathlon
☑️ Olympic gold in Triathlon
☑️ Become a mom
🔲 Olympic gold in Marathon pic.twitter.com/ap466BOw06

— gwen jorgensen (@gwenjorgensen) November 7, 2017

I was reading about her decision to make the switch on a certain running focused website and while I probably shouldn't have been surprised, there were a ton of haters. Obviously, winning Olympic gold in the marathon is a very lofty goal, but when you are someone like Gwen Jorgensen, who has accomplished some very lofty goals why wouldn't you aim high?

If/When she makes the Olympic team in the marathon, she'll be the biggest story of the Olympics. How many others have qualified in multiple sports? Just the fact that she's going to go for it will make her hugely valuable to sponsors and even if that has nothing to do with her decision, she's made herself into the hottest topic in running outside of Shalane. I don't know if she can do it, but I'm excited to watch her try. One thing I do know. The 2020 women's Olympic marathon trials are going to be lit.

I'm a sucker for some good content marketing...
It's true. I know companies spend a ton of money on marketing to try and entice you into buying their product or supporting their brand, but the ones that can story tell in a unique way really stand out to me. Again, I get that is the point of marketing but let me live. Take, for example, Tracksmith & Huckberry. Both of which recently put out amazing fall catalogs. Let's start with Tracksmith. Yes, I know their stuff is expensive...Rapha for running...yes, yes, I know.

Look at this thing though - http://camp.tracksmith.com/

It's a thing of beauty. Ignore the fact that they are selling products and it's a brilliant photo essay and story about a group of talented runners getting together for a fall training camp. I don't know about you but I would love to get together with a few friends and spend two or three days training together. I think that's why I like what Tracksmith does so much. I feel connected to who they are as a brand. I mean they are all much faster than I am, but that aesthetic and vibe really speak to me as a runner.

That extends beyond their lookbooks and catalogs down to their products too. When they first launched, I really wasn't too keen on $60 cotton t-shirts but as they've grown and released more gear, they've done an amazing job of storytelling with their products. Every new item they release is comes with a story. Summer runs to swimming holes (Cannonball shorts), early morning/late night track workouts (session shorts), and my personal favorite - track meets at Northeastern (Solomon Track Pants).

The last one is very specific and personal for me. Solomon Track is located in Dedham, Mass. and is the home of Northeastern University. It's also home to a number of championship level meets for the state and region. My first time running at Solomon Track was during the summer between my senior year of high school and freshman year of college. I won the open men's 5k in 16:37, 50 seconds up on second place. Woot, woot!

That was nothing compared to the next race I remember running there though. One of my best running memories and one of the best races I've ever run was at Solomon Track for the NEICAAA or Open New England's my sophomore year of college. This meet was all of the New England schools, division I, II, and III (except for the Ivy League schools, because...Heps). Anyway, I ran an absolutely perfect race to PR in the 10k (31:46) and take the win. I executed the plan that my Coach, Pete Thomas, gave me before the race absolutely perfectly. I ran in second or third for the first four miles, running a calm and patient tempo before launching a move with two miles to go. I ran the final two miles in under 10 minutes to take one of the biggest wins I've ever had. I can still remember Mark Miller standing in lane eight yelling "Haley, you won't close in 65!" as I rounded the turn with 300 to go. FYI, I closed in 65. Oh those were the days. 

I realize that this is silly and fairly self-indulgent but that's honestly where the story that Tracksmith told about the Solomon Track pant took me. That's obviously a unique circumstance and no company would sell anything if they had to connect to people that personally, but I thought it was cool that their catalog brought up a fun memory like that.

Side note: I just went down the rabbit hole of old results on Cool Running while looking to see if I could find those times. That was fun.

I won't dig into Huckberry's catalog because I just wrote War & Peace about a pair of pants, but check it out. If you are a fan of rocky coastlines and Fall in New England you'll dig it. Also, I'm buying that damn pizza oven.

72 Hours in Maine

There is a college trail running team... 
Jamil Coury of Run Steep Get High had an interesting vlog where he visited Western State and its Mountain Sports team. Western State, of course has a very good cross country and track program but I thought it was pretty interesting to see that they've also got a trail/mountain/ultra running and mountain biking team. While it is probably not something that I would have been interested in while I was a student, since I was running cross country and track, I definitely think it's a great idea. I know a bunch of people that didn't run in college that have become big time trail runners. Maybe they ran in high school or they started later in life, whatever the case may be, I think it would be cool to see more programs like this.


I actually feel like I read something like this about a school in Vermont...

opens a new tab and searches 'vermont college trail running team'

Yup. Sterling College
"Sterling is proud to host the first collegiate program in Mountain and Trail Running in the United States, established in October 2013. Students are supported to compete locally and regionally in events throughout the Green Mountains, White Mountains, and around the Northeastern U.S. Sterling students, staff, and faculty train in a supportive community of runners to prepare for competitions from an annual 5k trail series at the nearby internationally recognized Craftsbury Outdoor Center to 50 km, 50 mile, and 100 mile ultramarathons in Vermont and around the world."

Okay. I need to stop. The wheels are spinning on how we could move back to Keene and start a mountain/trail running team at KSC.

What's Poppin' on IG

The call of the gravel. The thrill of the dirt. #SeekNewRoads #itsnotnofun #dirtsearch Photo by @millimans

A post shared by Cannondale Bicycles (@ridecannondale) on Nov 15, 2017 at 6:36am PST

SHOCKER. Another Cannondale Slate. I am loving the new orange CX1 model. I will have this bike. In this life or the next.

This guy right here is the man! Thanks @runbumtours for putting on awesome events that showcase the best trails that the Southeast/East Coast has to offer! If you are a runner and have never participated in one of Sean's races, stop what you are doing and go sign up now! You won't regret it! #runbumtours #trailrunning #ultrarunning

A post shared by Matthew Johnson (@matt_johns91) on Nov 12, 2017 at 9:15pm PST

Shout out to Matt Johnson, who recently won the Sky to Summit 50k at Black Rock Mountain State Park. Matt is a local fast dude that I've raced a few times. He seems to have my number but it's always a good challenge.

It's been a rainy few days but I love it

A post shared by J U S T I N H A R D I G R E E (@justin.hardigree) on Nov 8, 2017 at 1:22pm PST

Did I trick you with this one? It looks like it's probably somewhere in New Hampshire or Vermont right?  Wrong. That's the North Georgia Mountains. I've been traveling a lot and I haven't had a chance to spend much time up there but thankfully Justin Hardigree - a local photographer - has been taking cool shots like this to feed my habit.

u r b a n e x p o s u r e

A post shared by Austin Hittel (@ahittel) on Nov 2, 2017 at 3:15pm PDT

I am very fortunate to work with some really talented people. This shot is from the Brooklyn Bridge during my adventures with Austin Hittel and Trevor Lasso from a few weeks ago. Austin set up his a7s for a long exposure on the bridge just after the sun set.

That's all for this Trestle Run. This is what happens when I start one and then it takes me a month and a half to finish it. Some day I will get my ish together and make these shorter and more frequent.