An "Adventure" Run

So yesterday I told you all about the awesome Adventure Run I went to last week with Lauren and Lindsay.  Well, on Saturday, I had a whole different kind of "Adventure Run" with Lindsay.

Lindsay and I are kind of training for a freaking 50k in October, so we thought maybe we should actually run some trails one of these days.  Since it was supposed to hit 90 degrees on Saturday we decided to start as early as we could handle (which it turns out, is 7:30am) at the Wilderness Creek Trailhead of Cougar Mountain (I'd never run there before but Lindsay had).

Look how glorious the trail was!

I had wanted to do 12-13 miles since I've been majorly slacking on my weekend long runs since the marathon, Lindsay was thinking more like 8, and then we decided on 2 hours instead of a distance goal.  This time goal became especially apparent after we started and the very first mile took us 20 freaking minutes.  Cougar Mountain is a MOUNTAIN people, and we climbed it.  I feel hard core.

2,748 feet of elevation gain: Boo-yah.

Anyway, so off we go, pretty freaking slowly, but it was definitely a workout, and definitely a hill workout at that.  We decide on our route early on, but continuously got "lost".  Not really lost mind you, just missing turns and basically adding mileage on to our route.  And then 2 hours ticks by and we are nowhere near our cars but we think we are close - we take a shortcut instead of the original route we designed and figure we will get back to our cars around 2.5 hours - no big deal, right?

And then suddenly we're in the middle of a random subdivision in the middle of nowhere in front of a few lovely humongous houses.  Going from the middle of the forest (and we also parked in the middle of a forest) to suburbia was a SHOCK, and not a good one, because we immediately knew we had missed a turn AGAIN.  And then the nicest lady IN THE WORLD suddenly appeared, offering to help us figure out the map, letting Lindsay fill up her water (WITH ICE!) in her house, use her restroom, and you guys, SHE EVEN OFFERED TO DRIVE US TO OUR CARS!!  Seriously - nicest lady of the year award.

But we refused, because we thought it was probably only another mile or two.  When we realized it was more like 4 miles we were majorly regretting our refusal.  But we made it. 

But certainly not without complaining.  Oh yes, complaining.  We were both like two 8-year-olds on a road trip to Grandma's house.  "I'm hungry", "I'm thirsty" (I didn't fill up my pack because I didn't realize it was nearly empty), "Are we there yet?", "I'm tired", "My glute hurts", "My legs hurt", etc. etc. ETC.  Can you guess who said each of these???

And then finally, FINALLY, we saw the most beautiful sight in the world: our cars.  And 12.8 miles and THREE AND A HALF HOURS later we were headed home to huge hamburgers, ice baths, and couches.  That's right, three and a half HOURS, and we only covered a half marathon (or less).  That's okay, I still feel hard core.

Do you trail run?  What's your favorite trail?  Ever gotten lost while on a run before???!!  Ever seen a snake while running and screamed?  Yeah... me neither.