According to my phone, I currently have 12 days, 8 hours, 4 minutes until Sun Mountain. This leaves me feeling many different things, not all of them good. There is still a bit of logistics planning to do, but for the most part I have already figured out what I'll be wearing, eating, storing, and carrying. Now all that's left is to RUN the thing.
So first, below should be the link for my Sunday run statistics. You'll notice that it has a new feature now- maps! Yes, I finally upgraded my watch (have I mentioned this already? I can't remember) to the Garmin 305. It is very handy. Has a compass and everyhing, which proved to be a (literal) lifesaver already.
Tiger Mountain Run
This weekend's run left me considering some issues that hadn't actually crossed my mind during my earlier, more controlled street runs. Essentially, when I took off on Sunday morning my plan was to get in one more solid long run before I begin tapering down. This basically equated to trying to focus more on elevation gain than distance, so I opted to go attempt a track I found in my book that ringed all around Tiger Mountain, east of Seattle. However, being the type of person who obsesses over all the minute details but then forgets the big issues, I neglected to bring any sort of map with me. This was my first problem.
The weather had been promised as spotty rain, which more or less delivered. I had a few moment that probably qualified as a downpour in other parts of the country, but here in Western Washington most just get dismissed as drizzle. However, I did not take into account the effect that such moist weather might have had on very dirt-based trails, particularly trails that were at any sort of angle (honestly, shouldn't the water have kept flowing downhill or something?). Thus, the first hour of my planned 4 hour run were spent slogging up hills that bore more in resemblance to a slip-and-slide than an actual trail. Despite this they were still cleaner and more maintained than anything I've found in the Captitol Forest so far.
The mud also had the effect of ensuring that once I hit the two hour mark, pushing forward seemed like a better option than going back. Since I felt that I was more or less about halfway around the mountain at this point, I kept traveling on, choosing pathways more or less at random, having totally abandoned the original route laid out by my book (which, in my defense, is fairly outdated). There is a compass function built into my watch, but I didn't turn it on, relying on my internal compass instead.
Somewhere around 4 and a half hours in, I passed the same set of rocks that I had run by earlier, and finally had to admit to myself that I was lost. I managed to seek the aid of a passing hiker, the only one that I seen in almost two hours, and readily determined that while I thought I had been running North towards the mountain's first peak, I had in fact been running South towards it's third (who knew a mountain could have more than one peak?). The hiker gave me one of her spare maps, pointed me down an old logging road that was reading North according to my watch, and sent me on my way.
I contined along this trail, now keeping an almost constant eye on my directional indicator, trusting in it with almost religious zeal, even when the road begain to incline up. And up. And up. I started at about 1100 feet, and topped out at 2900. At this point I noticed two things- first, there were patches of snow on either side of the road, and second, I had popped out into what looked like some sort of industrial complex at the peak, with large satellites and chain fences around quiet buildings. I still hadn't seen anyone since that hiker. Finally, I reached the end of the road, literally. Where the map I now possessed said I was to keep going forward, and building sat, ringed with a tall fence and warning signs that proclaimed there were dangerous levels of NIER (Non-Ionizing Electromagnetic Radiation). My ability to go forward was blocked, and the thought of going back crushed me. I just sat down in the middle of the road, my mind a blank.
Finally, after a few minutes I collected myself, and noticed a smaller sign next to the larger warnings. It said only two words- Bypass trail -and had an arrow pointing to the right. Hope flooded back into my , and took off down this trail, hopping from rock to rock, running as fast as the terrain would allow me to. Finally I was on my way home.
After that I had a few points where I had to backtrack and consult my map, but for the most part it was a road straight north to home, and almost all downhill. The further North I traveled the more hikers I encountered, and having some of humanity nearby provided a little more feeling of safety. Finally, after plummeting down a steep section of the trail for about half a mile, I suddenly popped out onto cement road, with my car just a few feet away!
So, lessons learned here- don't deviate from planned trips, or attempt new paths, unless you have plenty of spare time in which to do so. Make sure to carry maps and other tracking supplies (I don't know what I would have done without my compass). Also, always pack way more than you in food and water. I brought a couple hours worth of extra, but being on the trails running as long as I was multiplied my hunger factor by several levels. I was ravenous by the time I got back to the car. The final, and most important lesson of the day? Don't underestimate what elevation will do to your running time. There were spots where I was barely moving over 1 mile an hour. I know all of the trail books talk about how running pace on roads doesn't equate to running pace on trails, but this weekend really drove the message home to me.
That said, I can't wait to go out and run Tiger Mountain again.
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