Getting back to business.

Two weeks into my first three week build of the training season, and my muscles are screaming. And with all the training, racing, working, and socializing plans swimming around in my brain, there hasn't been much room for thoughts of single-dom. Almost. But, on to cheerier topics. Training. Triathlon. Treats.

The week-end was good... not exactly epic. But, I can't complain about an entire road bike ride in semi-dry, sunshine, and 50s... in January. Followed by a Sunday run that was entirely off-road!

Though, it all had the potential for disaster. The weather powers-that-be never want to get Oregonian's hopes up by suggesting that there might actually be sunshine on a week-end. So, the forecast remained mostly cloudy with a 40 % chance of rain. I was meant to drive up to Portland with a friend, but he sent me a very sad email, mid-afternoon saying he was out, down for the count, sick as a dog. Not going. A quick texting, emailing, and facebooking frenzy ensued as I and the two other people in his car reworked our plans. It was decided that I would sweep through the Willamette Valley, picking up people and bikes on my way to Sauvie Island. The only condition of riding in my car.... stopping at Trader Joe's. The Corvallis location opens in two weeks, but I can't wait that long for my Joe's Coffee Beans.

Ride destination: Hills. The hardest thing to simulate on a trainer is riding up a hill. Sure you can get out of the saddle, put your bike in the hardest gear, but you miss the handling of the bike, the momentum of the climb, not to mention the scenery! So, when Matt asked me and the boys where we wanted to ride, we all pointed up. Up to Skyline Rd. This was a real treat for me. I had never ridden (as a cyclist... done four triathlons there) in Portland. And we were riding the cream of the crop. So many cyclists. And up and down and up and down, until my quads would no longer fire, and we blessedly descended back to the cars.

Day two: the off-road run that would never end. I got an FB bulletin around 11:00pm from a fellow Brooks IDer. Meet at the Saddle at 8am for 14 miles. Doable.... if I fell asleep at that exact moment. I set the alarm anyway, packed my bag, laid out my running clothes and nutrition and read myself to sleep.

At the trail, I was on-time to meet the Corvallis Ultrarunners Group. Slightly under-caffienated, under-nutritied and over-sore. We started off running the 1-mile uphill side of the loop, which was okay because I'm pretty speedy uphill. But at the "top", we swung around on Powderhouse Trail and went all the way down to Peavy. At the bottom, I was introduced to "Sondra-Creep" a phenomenon encountered when Sondra comes on a run and starts to suggest modifications to our route involving trails that add a mile here, two miles there, and before you know it, your 14 mile run has become a 21 mile run. We wound around the Discovery trail, the Calloway Creek Trail, and the bottom of 305 before I glanced at my watch.... 1:25 and we were still at least a 30-minute run from the cars by the shortest route! And the shortest route, what we ended up taking, is almost straight up. It encompasses some of the grade from the Mac Forest 15K, so you know it's steep. At the top, FB-friend Erica and I pealed off to bee-line back to the cars, even picking up the pace a bit to avoid getting too cold in the rain that had started up.

Fantastic run, fantastic ride, fantastically sore quads from all the climbing. Two-days of foam roller still haven't been able to sort out the carnage!

Rave Run: Mary's Peak

Imagine a drippy Saturday morning in Oregon. The temp hovers at 50 °F. A forest with trees as big as 5 ft. in diameter. Spanish moss cascading from winter barren branches. Weak sunshine filtering through the clouds, brightening already vivid woody colors and deafening the sounds of our footfalls.

Footfalls? Running... After a home-made vanilla latte at Cafe Petro (more on this someday), Blair and I hopped into the Beeper for its first off-road experience and the 20-minute drive up Woods Creek Rd. to the base of the Northridge Trail. To local mountain bikers, the Northridge Trail is the holy grail, the nemesis, the scene of major whammies, and the source of their best stories. But on this fine morning, we saw no tire treads, barely any footfalls, and heard only the soft drumming of a misting on the branches and leaves far above our heads.

We started out on fire road 2005 heading towards Conner's Camp, passing through the closed gate, we encountered a single track off to our left. We followed this for a bit before it wound back around to the road. Figuring this was where we were supposed to be (running uphill), we turned left on the road again and continued along for a half mile. Something didn't seem right to me at this point (I thought we should be on single track). So, at a flagged tree, Blair and I turned into the woods along a game trail.. a narrow, sometimes non-existant scramble through underbrush, over downed trees, and across creek beds. We ran/climbed/scampered like this for a few minutes... I'm sure Blair was wondering where on Earth we were going. But, I was in charge of the show, the gal with the plan, and he said he was there to follow me. That's a lot of responsibility. Fortunately, I have a natural sense of where I am supposed to be, and before either of us had a chance to question if this was the right thing to do, we stumbled onto the Northridge Trail.

We again turned uphill... and ran for 45-minutes up the single track. It wasn't a "straight-up", but more of a gentle climb along the contours of the mountain. The air got wetter. We ran through pockets of warm air. Occasionally, we had to slow to climb over downed trees, navigate cascading tree roots, and twinkle-toe through rock gardens. And up, and up. For four miles. But it never seemed like too much and we didn't encounter anybody on the trail. At some points, I was running holding my breath as the trail came precipitously close to tossing us down the nearly sheer slopes.

The pace and the not super uphillness gave us a chance to talk. So, as we ran, Blair and I talked about the Beaver Freezer (OSU's annual fundraising triathlon), yoga, Haiti, cooking (he makes tapioca rice pudding by the gallon and I make chicken soup by the gallon), racing as a professional triathlete, and movies. Sometimes, we didn't talk at all, just breathed and ran.

At long last we reached the top of Mary's...at 4,097 feet, it is the highest point in Oregon’s Coast Range and the most prominent peak to the west of Corvallis. In the woods, we were shielded from the weather. At the top, out in the open, it was colder, rainier, and windier, and we were glad when the trail crossed the parking lot and dipped back into the woods. We had taken the short-cut to the top and planned to run down the East Ridge Trail, taking the Tie Trail back to Northridge. However, crossing the parking lot at the top proved difficult as the clouds shrouded one end from the other. We couldn't see more than 50 ft to where we were going, but after a minute or two running the perimeter, we picked up the trail again and started heading down... so we thought.

It was glorifyingly down hill, and we readjusted the hip flexors and quad muscles for the descent. At the junction with the Tie Trail, we encountered our first people of the day. I was focusing more on my footing, calling out my customary greeting to the hikers "Hi, how are you?!" One hiker called out, "Great, have a good rest of your run, Sunny". Which caused me to nearly fall off the trail. I came to a stop and recognized Mel and Eric, a couple from my cycling team, Pacific Power/Blue Sky. We exchanged a few words, not wanting to let the blood cool to much, Blair and I headed back down the trail quickly. A couple of strides in, he comments... "we've met six people total in 7 miles and you know two of them." What can I say? Most of the people I call friends are active. Stands to reason I would see them out on a cold raining day ascending the highest mountain in coastal range. ;-)

At this point, we thought the trail was all downhill. Wrong. Be prepared, you will run about a 3/4 miles more uphill to meet the junction with Northridge. That was the only part of the whole run that was grueling. After that, we bounded, ran, leaped our way down the switchbacks back to the car. The caffeine had long ago been replaced by adrenaline. We found the trail head that we should have used to avoid our bushwacking (turn right on the fire road from the other trail, proceed 9.2 ft). The real single-track came out 100 yds from the Beeper, and then end of our off-road rave run.

Epic.