Thursday, September 11, 2014

A Glorified Workout Calendar

Well that was an unexpectedly long absence from blogging! I know you've been on pins and needles wondering whether I made it back from Lost Lake. In fact, I've been all over the place these last couples of weeks, from Alaska to California to the Cascades to Eugene. School doesn't start for another two and a half weeks (I KNOW, I'M THE LUCKIEST) so there's still plenty of time for fun adventures between now and then.

In general, I feel really fit right now. Multiple-hour outings most days will do that to you, I suppose. I'm still not running as many miles as I'd like, but I find that I'm able to recover from pretty hard efforts almost immediately, which is a great feeling. My endurance would probably max out around 15 miles right now, but I feel nearly as strong as I did before my marathon last year, likely due to all the steep terrain I've been hiking and running on.

It's taken me a few days to finish this post (adventures call!) so while I could dedicate single posts to many of these outings I'll have to make do with more of a workout calendar (which sounds way more interesting, amirite?). The pictures will hopefully make up for that.

Monday, September 25: 3 miles, treadmill

Tuesday/Wednesday: Lost Lake, 15 miles total (hiking), plus another 4 - 5 miles in side trips

Lost Lake was beautiful, although the weather wasn't terribly cooperative and we (or rather, I) chose to hike in from the decidedly less scenic trailhead which had us on very a wooded trail until about 5.5 miles in. That left us with only a couple of miles to enjoy the scenery. 

The trailhead was nice, though. That's the edge of Kenai Lake.

Once we finally got some views.

The weird coloring isn't actually a filter, my iPhone camera just does that when I shoot into the sun.

The lake really is that blue, but only when the sun's shining on it. Once that left it just looked like regular water.

We hurried to get camp set up before it started raining (which, amazingly, didn't actually happen until the following day) and then explored for a bit. My dad shot a photo of me running to a viewpoint, which was necessary because it was much farther than it appeared and it was getting dark out.

It's not the clearest shot but the mountains are cool!

I wanted to look down on Seward, which you can sort of see in the top left.

It rained all day the following day, which blew, but overall it was a nice trip and fun to spend it with my dad. I hadn't backpacked in a while so my hips were a bit sore but other than that I felt like I hadn't done much at all!

Thursday/Friday: rest

I didn't have car access, wanted to catch up with some friends, and wanted to rest up before Saturday's epic hike so I took it easy.

Saturday: Pioneer Peak, 9 hours

I've always wanted to climb Pioneer Peak (you should really click on that link, it's a beautiful picture that gives you a view we didn't get while hiking) and was overjoyed when my friend insisted on doing it despite not having done any hiking (or physical activity, really) in months. We've done difficult hikes with similar preparation before, though, and they turned out great so I figured we'd take it one step at a time and see what happened.

It was a perfect day for hiking.

Suck it, Oregon.

Unfortunately, this mountain bested me. I was thisclose to the top before I made the hard decision to turn around. The friend I was hiking with had already stopped while I sped on to (hopefully) summit, but I hit some pretty sketchy trail I was not comfortable traversing on my own so had to call it a day. I honestly don't know how people get up that (and plenty of them do!) because it was pure scree and the consequences of falling looked pretty dire. I definitely plan to attempt it again in the future, though.

Fortunately, my consolation prize was still pretty kickass.

Beautiful fall colors are starting to show. Too bad they only last for, like, a week.

In all, we hiked for nine hours. It can actually be done in much less time but we had to take pretty frequent breaks.


Sunday/Monday: rest (travel, first to California and then to the Bend area)

Good thing because my body was totally wrecked from Pioneer. My thighs were so sore from the descent.

Tuesday: hike up Waldo Mountain, 2.5 hours

Some friends and I camped with a pretty stellar view of South Sister and Broken Top Mountain before heading back to Eugene. On our way, we hiked Waldo Mountain. It was honestly a really boring hike (if that's the country the Waldo 100k is on you can count me OUT - although joke's on me because obviously I'm not remotely capable of even thinking about running that far at the moment) but the view at the top was decent.

Wednesday: 9 miles around Alton Baker Park

I didn't do a lot of running while home so wanted to see how the legs would hold up. They felt great!

Thursday: 4.5 miles up Skinner Butte

I was planning to run a flat route but was feeling good so decided to add the short (.5 mile one way) but steep Skinner segment on.

Friday: rest
Saturday: 9.75 miles around/over Mt. Pisgah

I ran this with a friend who assured me there's a trail around Pisgah. I believe him now, but we didn't find it. After seven miles or so, we came to a dead end and, having no idea where to go from there, decided to hike up and over Pisgah to get back to the parking lot. We had to hike probably a mile in total but still got a lot of solid running in. It was also quite pretty out.

The mountains had a sort of Smokey Mountain thing going on.

Sunday: 4.5 miles up Skinner Butte

I enjoyed the longer run - Skinner Butte combo so decided to do it again.

Monday: 3 easy, flat miles
Tuesday: hike up Spencer Butte

Wednesday: 10 miles on the Silver Falls half course, reasonably hilly

I'm running the Silver Falls half this November so decided to check out the course again. It was just as boring as the first time. Nay, more boring because now most of the waterfalls are dried up. I was able to run some of the early part of the course (although I got terribly lost and wasted about two miles running in and around a campground), which is significantly flatter than the latter portion. I was happy I was able to run all but .2 miles and to see that it didn't take much out of me.

Thursday: rest

I was considering going for a run because I'm driving to Washington tomorrow for a weekend of camping and hiking but decided it was safer to take it easy after a run-heavy week.


Now that I've gotten my beautiful mountain fix and am back in an area with (mountain snob alert!) fewer beautiful mountain opportunities, I plan to shift my focus more towards running. My goal is to run 4 - 5 times per week (with at least one longer trail run) and hike 1 - 2 times per week. We'll see how it goes!


  1. That's a gorgeous two weeks! Do you have plans to return to Alaska permanently after you're done with school or will you go where the best paying jobs are (assuming they're not in Alaska)??

    1. To be honest, I don't think I'll move back, at least not to Anchorage. The outdoors are unbeatable but the people can really be a drag. Although I do think I'd love Southeast Alaska. I've never been because it's hard to get there (and expensive!) but I've heard great things. In all likelihood I'll try to stay in the PNW once I graduate but who knows, really? Only time will tell!

  2. Okay, I'm ready to book my tickets to Alaska now. :) I can see why you're a mountain snob after living in that beauty for so many years. Glad you made it back safely and that you were able to get in some good hiking!

  3. Hiking is definitely a great workout (stating the obvious). I remember Amy using it to supplement her marathon training. You are so funny about trees :) That shot of Lost Lake (with the caption about the lake really being that blue) looks like something out of Jurassic Park! I'm currently budgeting for my two month trip to Alaska.... which months should I aim for? I'd like to avoid the rainier parts of the year.

    1. Wait, is that a serious question? Two-month trip to Alaska?! I'm so jealous! So the two best months (in my opinion) are June and July. There's never any guarantee that it won't rain the whole time (If I remember correctly, this year it rained for pretty much the entire summer), but June and July are your best bet. When it's not raining, there's really nothing better than an Alaskan summer. August tends to be rainier so I'd avoid it if you can. September can also be really nice if you're looking to avoid prime tourist season although again, rain could be an issue. Avoid February-April like the plague. December's always great if you're into snow, but it obviously makes hiking and all that much more difficult because the pretty areas are not super accessible.

    2. It was serious in a very far off in the future sort of way. I am coming to Alaska someday and I will remember when the best time to go is. But no, no two month trip in the works right now. I do appreciate your advice, though!

  4. Awesome Photos!! Keep Posting!! Stay Strong