Wonderland Trail Run, close but no banana!

This past weekend Miles called me up and said he wanted to run around Mt. Rainer. Sure Miles, why not, or we could go down to the Snoqualmie falls and jump in at the top, would probably hurt a little less long and have a higher chance of survival... I havent run longer than 20 miles in a long time. Well we can just take it easy. Ok, sounds like a plan, a not so well thought out one at that, but a plan nontheless. Given that i had friends in town Sunday afternoon and needed to be back at lunch Sunday, and that Kimberly, Matt and Ruri decided to join as well chances dwindled to actually circumnavigate the dang thing, but we had a bail option since Matt's girlfriend came out later, and the weather was gorgeous.

We started at Mowich Lake at 8AM, clocking about 4-5Miles per hour including the climbs for the first few hours.

The scenery was out of this world, i could not remember ever having done a better trail run in my life, sure the current one alwasy sticks out, but i think this will go down as one of the top 10 in my final tally. The company was great, and we moved at similar speed until we night broke.

Then the speed dropped immensely, and we just could not get a rythm going, too many breaks, and general tiredness made it pretty clear I wont be able to make the 93 miles and make it back in time. As an endurance athlete with a wife that has a decent but limited range of acceptance of "lateness due to trainings taking longer than planned" i decided to go for the safe option, rather than the "ask forgiveness later" option. This option actually reduced pain both short and long term! Miles, Ruri and Kimberly joined me in cutting the course short at mile 68, while Matt and Erin who joined him at 68 finished up the 93. Nicely done Matt, I ll just have to do it again, GLADLY!