I had picked up a nice flank steak earlier in the day on Sunday, mixed up a spicy dry rub for it, rubbed down this underrated cut of beef and let 'er sit for a few hours. Yesterday evening, I grilled it beautifully. I cooked peppers and onions in a cast iron skillet on the grill, as well. I'm a live fire guy - can't stand propane BBQ's. I've tried them in the past but just don't like how they cook. Give me charcoal or hardwood any day and I'll do anything you can do on a propane grill or a smoker, and probably better.
Anyway, suffice it to say we had an excellent dinner. We enjoyed flank steak fajitas, black beans and scratch made margaritas. While it was a great meal, it's not exactly what I would call a good pre-race meal, if one were running the next morning. But, hey - no worries! We were thoroughly enjoying a little hiatus from the 50@50 Project, letting our aches and pains and scratches and bruises heal. Hell yeah! Bring on the spicy food and the booze, baby!
But, you see, there was this itch that needed to be scratched. We hadn't done a race in a couple of weeks and, well, it was starting to bug me. I felt like we should be doing a race. Camera Crew felt the same way. If you run or ride or partake regularly in any form of exercise, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Now, there was a run we had on the calendar that we had thought 'Nah, we have our schedule set. Let's keep resting and healing.' Ha! The run was this morning, Labor Day. And the Sunday of the great dinner and drinks was last night.
We're settling in for the evening last night, in bed - playing some cards and getting ready to watch a show on the laptop 'TV'. It's 10 PM and we both decided at almost the same time 'We should do the run tomorrow morning.' Wow and yikes. So, we looked up the details on the innerwebs, set the alarm and watched our show. Then it was sleepy time.
See? Just like that, Event 42 happened!
We felt like we should do this run for many reasons, mostly to scratch that itch. But it was also in our neighborhood - NW Portland. The event was the Wildwood Trail Run 10k. Over the last 7-ish years, Camera Crew and I have run all over Forest Park trails and countless times on Wildwood Trail. It's the main single track trail through the park, running about 30 miles north-south. A lot of the other trails intersect it at some point or another. It's a beautiful park and Wildwood is THE iconic trail. It was nice to be back.
The run was put on by the Oregon Road Runners Club. We've done several of their events for the 50@50 Project and are always impressed with how well-organized they are. This was to be a 'point to point' race, meaning the start and finish were not the same place, as is the case with most races. We drove up the where NW Cornell intersects with Skyline Blvd. and the volunteers helped us get parked. By the number of cars already there this was going to be a pretty good crowd. Of course, we hadn't pre-registered so we filled out the form and paid the fee. After a short wait, a school bus picked us up and took us to the start area. We were dropped on Forest Lane and walked in about a half mile to Firelane One. We gave our registrations to the start officials, they entered them in the race computer so they could track our time and that was it. We could start any time.
This was a unique race in that they allowed you to start whenever you wanted to start. The course was open from 7:30 to 12:30, with buses running continually, dropping off the next load of runners. This was smart and, for all I know, a requirement of the park that ORRC had to abide by. Makes sense. I can't imagine releasing several hundred runners all at once on a single wide trail. And since the trail is not closed for the race, there are other users on it at any given time. This type of 'open start' allowed runners to get spread out, which was really the only way it would work.
We stretched a little and took off. It was awesome being back on the trails of Forest Park. With all of our crazy events and full weekends, we had not been able to get on the trails. Years ago, when we were dating, we logged a lot of miles up here, training for marathons and other races. In fact, at our wedding last September, rather than label the tables by numbers or letters, we marked tables with the names of trails in Forest Park. "Mr. and Mrs. So and So, you'll be seated at Aspen." Or Wild Cherry. Or Dogwood. You get the idea. Yeah, it meant a lot to be running up here again. In fact, we are registered to do the fall slate of runs in 'our' park that are put on by Portland Trail Series, so we'll be back several more times as part of the 50@50 schedule.
Firelane One took us down to Wildwood and from there, we headed (generally) south. The trail has gentle ups and downs as it runs along the side of the west hills. It's pretty gorgeous, especially in the morning as the sun comes through the trees.
I took this picture several years ago during a run on Wildwood. It was a Sunday and this, folks, is my church. Glorious!
There were two rest stops along the 6.2 mile course - one at 2 miles, the other at the 4 mile mark. As we approached the second stop, one of the volunteers looked at me trundling down the trail and side "Nice Labor Day shirt!". I'll explain.
A couple of months back, at the 4th of July run, Camera Crew suggested I could 'try harder' at dressing up for the themed events we were doing. She said this because it was July 4th and I maybe had some blue or red on, but didn't make a big effort to dress up in the ol' red, white and blue. Other runners had on Uncle Sam hats, streamers, Statue of Liberty get ups, etc. I made the comment in the blog post for that event that I would try to come up with something for Labor Day.
Enter Anne, my mother-in-law.
She sent me a t-shirt to wear, should we happen to do a Labor Day event! Well, we did and I wore it, proudly. It was a shirt for the AFSCME Local 52 - AFL-CIO, with the eight stars of the Alaskan flag and the slogan 'Alaskans Working For Alaska'. Ha! It's safe to say that I was the only one wearing a Labor Day-themed shirt. Read up on the union I represented at www.afscmelocal52.org Thanks, Anne!
The course was mostly flat with some rollers here and there. We passed the Stone House, an old public restroom - nonetheless, an impressive structure that was built in the '30's by the Works Progress Administration. Portland's infamous Columbus Day storm in October 1962 damaged the water lines. Repairs were considered to be too costly, so the building was gutted and the outer stone walls remain. Kinda eerie looking in the fog, just so you know. The last little bit, less than a mile, was UP. Yoinks. It was quite the hill climb, starting gradually then getting steeper! It was tough. A speedy guy passed us as we were struggling and said 'Come on, you can do this!' - so we did. It wasn't pretty but we ran (most of) the rest of the way to the finish at Upper Macleay Park.
The finish was somewhat comical, in an anticlimactic sort of way. At most races, a few people (at least) clap and cheer for you as you cross the finish line. Because the finish for this race was steeply uphill right to the end, we crossed the line gasping and were met by everyone else breathing hard from their climb to the finish! Haha! It was strangely quiet, except for the panting.
After sitting for a bit, drinking some water and Gatorade, the bus came around and we loaded up for the drive back to the SUV. Even though this event was a very last minute decision, we were feeling pretty good about the results.
I may just fix up flank steak fajitas and margaritas before every event!
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