Sascha's Ochoco Adventure

About a week and a half ago, Sascha and I decided to head out to the Ochoco Mountains for a nice, long day in the mountains. The Ochocos are located about 30 minutes east of Prineville, kinda in the middle of nowhere. I love going there for a few reasons, one being that I hardly ever see another person. The Lookout / Round Mountain loop is an awesome 27 miler with about 6,500' of ascent and descent. It's a great trainer for most hard 100s.

The Ochocos got a lot of snow this winter, so I called ahead to check the trail conditions. Knowing that the FS personnel usually give the worst case scenarios, I was excited when the ranger station lady told me I could probably at least make it up Lookout. So Sascha and I loaded up with lots of food and nuun and started running up the 7 miles to the top of Lookout Mtn.

It was probably 4 miles before we hit snow, patchy at first, then it really started coming at us. I had been up this enough times to know the general direction, so wasn't too concerned when I started losing the trail. Only once did I really lose the trail, but somehow managed to stumble on it again. We eventually summited the large, and very snowy, plateau. After walking around a while, we found the summit sign. I briefly contemplated just doing an out-and-back, but thought that wouldn't be much fun, so we continued the loop on the north side, heading down, over, and occasionally post-holing through, lots and lots of snow (Sascha has a distinct advantage in these conditions). Although never finding an actual trail, we did somehow manage to pop-out a few miles later at a trailhead. Hm, nice.

Next up, Round Mtn. The lower part of this climb was mostly south facing, so there was nice, dry trail to run on. Closer to the top, however, the trail wound its way over to the east side and lots of snow. Crossing a small creek, I decided to fill my bottle. It tasted sooooo nice and refreshing, but my tummy immediately started rebelling. Hm, maybe not so smart. We lost the trail again, so just decided to beeline to the summit. Great views and great weather were at the top, so we took a little break. I broke out the pepperoni sticks and decided Sascha deserved a few hunks, too. She was stoked!

Now we had a decision to make: continue the loop another 5 miles down the very snowy north side of Table Mtn. until we hit the road for the last 7; or go back down the 5 miles we had just come up, and the last 4 also on a road. Not wanting to get too lost, we went back down the way we had just come up. It was a bit tricky, though, starting down on the east side and losing the trail often. Going down one snowy draw in particular, not really knowing if I was going the right way, I had a slight panic-attack. So we stopped, hiked back up about 5 minutes, and Sascha came to the rescue and found the right path going the other way. That Sascha, she's smart sometimes.

We got back to the road and I was kinda looking forward to just running 4 easy miles down now, without having to navigate. So we ran, and ran, and ran, and kept running. Hm, maybe 5? Finally 7 miles later we safely made it back to the Honda. Sascha was hot and thirsty. I was just tired and hungry.

It was a great day. 27 miles, close to 7,000' vertical, 6 1/2 hours, lots and lots of snow. The mileage was actually really big for Sascha. She had 2 acl surgeries in 2004 and hasn't gone more than about 20 since then. So that, coupled with her being 10, made this a great day for her. But I don't think she cared about the surgeries or being 10. She was tired and happy and just glad to be done. And I was happy to have spent an incredible day getting lost in the mountains with Sascha.

Feelin' Fit!

After my Yasso workout last Thursday at the UNC track, I started feeling pretty good about my current fitness level. So I was excited to get back to DC for the weekend and run the Custis Capitol Hospice 12 km road race on Saturday. I met Bryon's at his house on Saturday morning, where he and I started our progressive run (hm, sounds political to me). We had a nice 8.5 mile warm-up, including running most of the course.

Since I was definitely warmed up, I decided to start a bit faster than normal, around 5:50 pace. The miles weren't marked, but I guessed that was about right. Running in the lead pack from the gun, I even briefly took the lead and thought how cool it would be for a dude from little Sisters, OR, to win a race near DC. That thougth quickly left as two guys whipped by and a third joined me. Within 10 minutes from the start, I was solidly in 5th place and stayed there for the rolly, hilly section of the race. I'm not a strength runner, so the short rollers are definitely not my friends, but I tried to power through them the best I could. At the turn around, seeing faces coming back toward me, I felt I definitely had a chance to move up to 2nd.

I made up ground on the rolling hills going back and by the time I hit the flat with a mile to go, 2nd-4th were right there. I surged hard past all of them at once and was able to hold it until the finish. So I got 2nd place in 45:11. I was hoping to go sub-45, but the consensus was that the course was about 7.7 m, giving me a 5:51 pace. I was definitely happy with the effort, and it was so nice to be racing on dry roads in shorts and short sleeves! Bryon and I finished off the run with a 4 mile cool down back to his house, giving us 20 solid paved miles for the day - just what my Boston-bound legs needed.

After the 12k, we headed off to our favorite DC area post-short road race food spot, the Silver Diner. I didn't think I was very hungry, but ordered lots anyway. I devoured a fat breakfast and most of the plate of cheese fries that we shared. Oh baby, good eating. I'm thinking cheese fries might be replacing KFC as my favorite post-race meal. Hey, this could be a new goal of mine - finding the ultimate cheese fries. Can you say road trip?!

A nice nap was in store that afternoon before the big night of bowling and karaoke. I hadn't bowled in a few years, and it showed. Bryon and I did manage to narrowly beat the 5-girl team, however. As usual, karaoke was fun. I didn't feel like drinking, and I definitely do not karaoke without liquid courage. So this time it was fun for me to just watch friends sing and dance.

After sleeping in on Sunday, I went to the start of the C&O Canal Towpath so I could run the first 14 miles of it up to the Billy Goat Trail and Great Falls. After a nice run of crusing in the low-7s, I hiked out to the Great Falls overlook. Not quite what I think of when I think waterfall, but pretty cool. Then I got to try my awesome technical skills on the technical portion of the BG Trail. I was impressed with the trail - pretty cool for so close to DC.

On Monday, my time back east came to and end. I had an awesome trip, learned lots, got in some awesome running in new places, ran everyday except the travel days getting there and leaving, and I wore shorts on every run. While the 108 miles in 9 days of running was less than what I was hoping for, the 6 quality days really made up for the lower mileage. It was good. Sascha and I were very excited to see each other and celebrated with an 11 mile snowy/slushy/icy run together on Tuesday. It was back to the slow slogging, but good to be running with Sascha again, plus the surprise 60 degree weather meant more shorts and short sleeves!

We're looking forward to more sunshine, temps in the 50s, and shorts at least through the weekend.

Sascha

So this blog is titled Sascharuns, and in my little introductory bio, I say how she's my loyal training partner and these are some of our adventures... Well, as you've probably noticed, there haven't been any posts about Sascha yet. So to Sascha, I say, this post is dedicated to you.

Since I'm currently taking my annual running sabbatical, Sascha is, too. I don't think she's enjoying it as much as I am. Usually after a couple days of not running, we're both pretty wired and ready to run. We haven't run for 8 days. I'm feeling pretty good about that, but Sascha, not so much. Almost every night when I get home from work, she's waiting at the back gate for me, doing her talk/howl, telling me it's time to run. Then she gets super excited and tears around the yard for a bit, comes inside and tears around the house for a while. Occasionally she'll stop and do her little head-thing, which means she really wants to play/run. Eventually, she figures out that nothing's happening, so she reluctantly lays down on her bed and sleeps.

Then the next morning comes and often times she'll wake me up with kisses all over my face. I try not to think that I saw her licking her butt last night, or eating deer poop when we walked around town the previous day. Anyway, I'll get up, let her outside, and of course she thinks that means we're going running. Sorry, Sasch.

We do go on daily walks around town, and she does enjoy those, especially walking past all of the barky-dog houses where the dogs seemingly never get to leave their yard. I just know Sascha looks at them as if to say "yeah, that's right, I'm out again, walking all over town, maybe even going running later, while you're still stuck in there. That really sucks for you, dog."

On Saturday, I was baking my first ever ham to take to the CORK Christmas Party. It was tasty and sure did smell good, too. Sascha noticed the smell and came in the kitchen to just watch as I was carving it. I am very good about not feeding people-food to Sascha, and as a result, she's not very farty. I like this. On Rumble day, after she's raced 20 miles, I do allow her a hotdog and hamburger as a treat for her effort. But that's pretty much it for the year. However, feeling weak and vulnerable because I haven't taken her running for over a week, I caved. I had a huge hunk of something from the ham that I thought Sascha would love. I mean, she devours a few pig's ears weekly, so fresh baked pig shouldn't be too big of a disruption to her digestive system. She took it, ran wildly around outside, and had her way with that hunk of ham. So Sunday we were walking around town, just an easy stroll. She puked not once, not twice, but thrice! Yeah, baby, we really are meant for each other. I obviously gave her no sympathy, but sure could smell the salty scent of ham. Mm, baby, nothing better than that! Oh yeah, that's why I don't feed her people-food.

It's getting close to Sascha's favorite time of the year - snowshoeing season! We're anxiously awaiting more snow in the central Oregon mountains so we can properly enjoy our winter wonderland.