Bella and I just ran from the house along Wolverine Road to the creek and back. It was a test run wearing my new road running shoes. They felt pretty good. Bella refused her breakfast this morning, but I see she gobbled it right up after running 4 1/2 miles!
The trails are still very muddy, and it is suggested folks stay off of many of them until conditions dry out. I knew the Matanuska Lake Trails were not too bad in most places right now, so I went with the Valley Wanderers on a 6-mile hike in that area. It was a very winding combination of parts of the Long Lake Loop and the Bear Berry Loop. We did encounter a couple of huge puddles that we needed to avoid by climbing a bit through the brush. But otherwise, the trails were pretty good. We did have to climb around a giant fallen tree on the Long Lake Loop Trail that wasn't even there a few days ago when I hiked it with Pam. I had taken a load to the landfill earlier and it was raining, so I planned for rain by wearing my rain jacket and making Bella wear her matching raincoat. At least she was colorful and easy to spot as she raced on ahead of the rest of us. But we didn't even get a single drop of rain. We were not at all disappointed about that. We had our lunch at the picnic table on the Bear Berry Trail with the awesome views of Pioneer Peak. It was great to be out with the group again.
I hiked the Long Lake Loop with my friend Pam and our 2 dogs today. I'm still getting over a bad cold but felt pretty good just doing our 4-mile hike around Long Lake. We did find a few very muddy places but were able to navigate around them. It looked like it really wanted to rain on us, but we only got a few little grains of snow that pelted us for a few minutes. It did make for an interesting, although rather threatening, cloudy sky. Our dogs were happy and very muddy by the time we got back to our cars. Bella is ready for another bath.
I initially registered for the half marathon because I have run it several times. The marathon is new this year and was originally advertised with a 5-hour time limit. I knew that was way beyond my abilities so reluctantly settled for the half. A few weeks later my friend, Alice told me she tried to register for the half, but it was all full. So, she registered for the full marathon, not really wanting to do the whole distance. Soon after, I noticed that they had changed the time limit to a generous 8 hours. I knew I could probably do that even if I walked the whole way. I tried to switch my registration to the marathon but got a message that it was too late to switch. A few days later I got a notice that if anyone wanted to drop out of the half to allow those waitlisted to get a chance, they could contact the race director. I talked with Alice and we decided it would be fun if we ran together. I emailed the director and switched to the full marathon. The day before the race, Alice switched to the half because her back hurt. She is a faster runner than I am, but I was looking forward to trying to stay with her most of the way. But that was not to be. There were only 34 runners doing the full marathon and they were all young enough to be my grandchildren, and a zillion times faster than I am. But that's OK. They took off and I was in last place in the first mile, which is typical. After a couple of miles, I found that my feet were really starting to hurt. It seemed to get a little worse with each mile. But I took it in stride and did a lot of short runs followed by periods of walking. My pace didn't seem to change much whether I walked or ran, and I could see I was on a pace to finish in time. I was so happy to see that a lot of the water had receded from that tunnel, and I was able to avoid getting wet feet. Although as I went through the tunnel for the second time, on the return course, I considered putting my feet in that icy water because by mile 17 or so, I was really having serious foot pain. I kept telling myself it's only a couple more hours, I'll live through it. The wind came up once out on the Springer system, and I was really happy I had brought my windbreaker with me. It kept me at the perfect temperature. It started out a gorgeous blue-sky day and was cooler and cloudy by the end. But still, a beautiful course with the mountains towering above me. I finished with 20 minutes to spare. Not a very good time, but still a finish. I'm so glad I upgraded to the marathon. It showed me that first I need to buy different shoes, then do some more training in the new ones. I need to pick up my pace if I want to finish the Anchorage Marathon in June. I should have plenty of time to remedy the foot and training problem by then. Plus, through the whole race I was also suffering with the blasted head cold that had not improved a bit since Tuesday. I was so happy to see that finish line!
Last time I wore my street running shoes, I had some trouble with my feet. So, I took a nice 6 mile run with Bella along the bike trails that will be part of the Valley Thaw Out Marathon this coming Saturday. I was very happy to find that they didn't seem to bother my feet at all. It wasn't quite as good of a training run as it could have been because Bella likes to stop and sniff every rock, tree, and blade of grass along the path. I parked at the Matanuska River bridge and ran through the tunnel, up to the Airport Road then over to the Springer system to see what the conditions were like. The only bad part was the tunnel under the Old Glenn Highway. It is totally flooded and I had to tiptoe carefully along a narrow section of ice, hoping Bella didn't pull me over into the water. I'm a little concerned about how I will negotiate that on the race. Maybe I will bring a couple of plastic bags to put over my shoes to keep them dry. Other than that, the roads and trails are in great condition. I seem to be coming down with a cold though, and that is worrying me more than the flooded tunnel. I'll be taking it easy for the rest of the week, keeping my fingers crossed.
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| My Route |
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| The Tunnel! |
I suggested Settlers Bay Coastal Trails as a possible place to hike today, when Pam asked if we should go hike. It's been raining and snowing and muddy everywhere. But we decided to give it a try. When we first arrived, it had at least stopped raining. The trail was hard packed snow and ice, requiring micro spikes. It started out fine, and the dogs ran on up ahead, but it wasn't too long before we encountered flooded conditions. We were able to navigate around the flooded areas and make it all the way to the other entrance. We elected to take the other trail back, assuming we would just have similar conditions. But this trail was much more flooded. About halfway back, we were unable to find a way around the flooded areas. We ended up trying to find a high spot, while scrambling over fallen trees and getting very wet feet. In some places, our little dogs were practically swimming in the water. We were basically between the two main trails. Occasionally we would find a narrow trail and follow it for a while. I always kept my AllTrails app open so I could be sure we were at least headed in the correct direction. Bella seemed to know what we were trying to do and tended to find paths leading toward the cars. We finally came to a fenceline and could see our cars down below. But at first, it looked like a steep cliff we would need to descend. So, we stayed on a trail but very soon I realized we were just headed back to where we had come from. We turned around then I saw Bella head along a narrow ridge and down to the parking lot. We ducked under that fence and followed her. It wasn't a trip that warranted taking any pictures, but I did take a screenshot of our crazy route on the AllTrails app. We're saving this one for dryer weather!
Bella and I hiked up the closed road to Independence Mine today. Most of the trails right now are a muddy slushy mess. I gave her a bath last night so didn't want to have to give her another one tonight. At least it was good clean snow all the way to the mine and back. She seemed to have a wonderful time racing up and down in the snow and visiting with the couple of other people we saw up there. I should have brought my skis, but I hadn't actually planned to go up there, so didn't have them with me. Maybe if this good weather holds, we will come back again tomorrow with skis. Although the forecast for tomorrow is snow. Maybe next week!
