Will Travel to Run

Saturday, Danni and I traveled to Missoula to put in a 20 miler in the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area. I had planned to stick with the main corridor trail for an out and back. We quickly realized that the wide path was a bit monotonous and not nearly as fun as single track. We diverted to a side trail that led us to a very steep uphill with a lot of remaining snow pack. It was a lot of work, but the view was spectacular. We planned to make up time down the other side, but ended up having to traverse a lot of snow.

Once we got down to the valley, we encountered a stream too wide to jump across. We spent some time trying to figure out a way to cross with dry feet. I found a place to jump across, only to find a swampy mess on the other side. I gave up, plowed on through, with very wet shoes. Danni followed and we were off again.

The next obstacle was in map reading. We discovered we were on the Wallman Trail (different from what we originally thought), so spent some time trying to figure out how to use the Garmin's compass. It could have been a safety advertisement labeled "Learn some backcountry skills BEFORE heading into the wilderness." Between the compass and intuition, we got back on track. We did find some other side trails, but did the last 6 miles on the main path. Click here to see more pictures.

Our reward was a shopping trip to REI where Danni cleaned out the store and I got my Garmin Forerunner 305!Our consensus for the day - we both are lucky to be married to great guys who support this crazy obsession of trail running. I must add that Steve spent the day fly fishing the Missouri - a happy day for us both!

This morning, my running group did 8 miles in Herron Park. Notice my lean in the picture below - I almost fell over and toppled the whole group trying to join the picture after setting the timer. We missed Tom (hope your foot is recovering), Ruth and Deb (we sent you both positive vibes for a good marathon day) Leanne was nice enough to bring me birthday balloons and a yummy cookie too pretty to eat on behalf of the group. Steve and I are "officially" celebrating our birthdays next weekend with a getaway, but thank you to all the friends and family who sent birthday wishes and made the weekend so great!