Run Oregon: What a Difference a Week Makes! From Wet Forest Trails to Winter Wonderland and a Few Pics From the Weekend.

Well, Oregon wasn't kidding around when it warned us that winter was coming!  Yesterday we awoke to temps in the single digits and today there was a good six inches of snow on the ground!  Talk about excitement in our house.  The kids were GIDDY!  Why can't adults stay this exuberant about life? Having kids around certainly reminds me to find joy in the little things.  They put on all their snow gear immediately and spent the first 45 minutes of the day running around outside before school.  These kids really aren't used to this much snow.  The climate in Portland is quite different.  The biggest difference between Bend and Portland when it snows?  Well, it rarely snows in Portland but when it does, school is almost always canceled.  This is because of how dangerous the roads can be with the wet climate. Freezing temps after a week of rain means icy icy roads!  In Bend, we are in the high dessert mountains where it is mostly dry and sunny.  Even when it is single digits, the sun is likely shining.  The city of Bend is also equipped road-wise for lots of snow so the kids had to go to school!  Ha!  Poor kids.  Lucky mom!  I enjoyed the snow falling out my window all morning while I got lots things checked off my lists.  Then I ventured out into Narnia and did the best I could at trail running.  It was more of a walk, hike, jog.  Really, I could have used some cross country skis or snow shoes!  I think I will invest in some.

View from my window today.

This post is short and sweet. Not a lot of time left to write much but I will include some pictures from this last week of running and visiting with friends.  I love how just this last weekend we were running in the wet McDonald Forest in Corvallis, OR (testing out part of the McDonald Forest 50k) and today I was running in falling snow and through snow-covered evergreens.  It was so hard to leave Asheville, NC and took me a good two months to snap out of my sad slump and missing my Blue Ridge Mountains but now that I'm settled, I'm more and more thankful to call Bend (and OREGON) HOME! Change takes time.  

  

From this on Sunday (Corvallis, OR):  

Around mile 20 of the McDonald Forest 50k trail race.  

To this Today (Bend, OR): 

If you look down along the river on the left, you can see the foot bridge that many of you might recognize from the Deschutes River Trail.  

My dog tried to take me on our usual back trails.  Nope, wasn't happening! 

I was thankful for this back road that leads to the trails (still a trail)  because of the road tracks left for me to run on.  Thank you city of Bend.  Ha!

This last weekend we drove to Corvallis to visit some of our closest friends for my birthday.  Corvallis is where Oregon State University is.  This is where my husband went to school and Corvallis was where we met during the summer of 2000. It was so special to show our kids some of the places where we first fell in love!  

So neat to see our kids sitting in American Dream Pizza.  This was where I ate my very fist night in Corvallis after driving myself from Colorado to Oregon.  I only knew one person and she was gone for the weekend so I went to eat with my new roommate (also a stranger) and our neighbor who turned out to be the love of my life.  

14 years later and I'm sitting here with our girls...we never would have known from that first dinner together.  

And this was the beautiful soul that started it all...a simple phone call from Iowa (me) to Oregon (her) one random spring night and the rest is history.  I agreed to move to Corvallis with her for the summer!  Crazy how that decision opened doors to the rest of my life.  This girl was at the birth of all three of my kids (and I hers), maid of honor in my wedding (I was in hers too), the reason for why I met my husband, and has been a constant in my life over the years.  Love her!  Thankful that I could spend my birthday with her.  

1.  Does it snow where you live? Do you run in the snow? 

2.  Best running shoes for snow and winter running?  

3.  Have you taken your kids to a special spot where you and your significant other fell in love or met?  

4.  If you want to read about and win a hands-free dog leash, check out my last post:  Hipster Leash

Amanda

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As Seen on My Run #2: Trail Run Weekend and Other Random Tidbits on Running, Motherhood, Life

1. You bet I grabbed the vaseline before we left for our trail run date today.  After a weekend of trail runs in this rugged mountain high dessert climate (dry and constant sunshine), this girl has some armpit chaffing going on! This is relatively new for me except for Boston 2014.  Ouch!  In addition to chaffing, I need LOTION for my thirsty skin.  Lots of it! 
2. After my ten miler yesterday (with 4 in the morning to make 14), six on Friday and seven today, my body is SORE!  Sore but happy.  
3. Running with a dog is hilarious!  It's completely different from running alone when you have a new dog.  Such a new experience for me.  Instead of having little kids and stopping to talk to random strangers about each other's kids, it is now stopping to talk to random people about their dogs.  It takes twice as long to run a trail when doing this.  Every stop is like an opportunity to socialize your dog.  "Say hi."  "He's nice."  "How old is he/she?"  "What kind of dog do you have?"  And it's even more hilarious to me at the ego stroking going on between dog owners.  So many people complementing other dogs and loving have others to talk to about their dog.  Oh, and people we would otherwise rarely stop to talk to...they are our new trail buddies...all because of our dogs....old ladies, other trail runners, families with kids, etc.  I got so many laughs out of our run today.  Note to self:  If we are going to get a steady workout without stopping, we must resist the temptation to stop to let Ashe talk to every dog we see.  
4. Speaking of Bend and dogs, um, could you get any more dog friendly?  We went to a very popular brewery tonight called 10 Barrel and took Ashe with us.  Half the people there had a dog with them...as long as they are leashed, dogs are allowed in so many restaurants.  And we forgot a dog bowl for water, but guess what?  They had one for him.  With dog bones painted on the side.  Really?  So, we enjoyed a cold IPA and french fries and he did some people and dog watching.  Score!  
5. What a good good family weekend!  A weekend I most DEFINITELY needed!  Soccer games, sunshine, plenty of mileage, more settling into a routine, some journal time with my coffee that helped me be present and content, finding a new church that fits our family needs (haven't been to church of any kind in over a year...but this one seems like a good fit for our family on many counts), a trail run day with my husband, new babysitter and so much more.  
6. This weekend was even a weekend that felt ON in the motherhood department (well, by the end of the weekend). Having a 4th grade girl (going on major teenager), 2nd grader and a five year old is new territory for us.  It always is...every year is something different when it comes to this parenthood gig, right?  And I don't think we are ever fully prepared.  We just need to do the best we can.  It helps to have some really good friends in our life to look up to and get advice from!   Funny how once we feel like we have some sort of grip or control over the stage our kids are at, things transition again. 

Okay, onto our trail runs.  I'll leave most of this part to the pictures.  These pictures include two pictures from the Shevlin Park trails (around Tumalo Creek) and Green Lakes Trail towards the end.  However, most of them are from today where we took Marci's advice and ran on the Deschutes River Trail near Meadow Camp going towards Mr. Bachelor.  Thanks Marci!! This section of trail is my favorite of all of them around here so far!  Gosh, it's hard to choose a favorite here but this one was incredible.  Besides the many dog owners with their dogs we saw off leash and the fly fisherman, it was pretty much just us and nature.  Glorious.  Oh, and my husband actually coached me a bit in regards to running fast downhill on the trails!  He just made some simple suggestion about making sure I took small steps and didn't let my toes go in front of my knees.  I'm not sure how he worded it but WOW! For the first time trail running, I felt like I learned a new trick that led to noticeable improvement in efficiency and speed!

Playing toss the pine cone into the river.  Ashe is strong swimmer!  

LOTS of this on our run today. Quite funny to me to see how things change when you have a new dog.  

This place rocks!  Dog friendly, good vibes, in a cool area, and good beer!  And darn right, I earned these fries after this weekend of running! YUM!

Who Knew?  I LOVE him!

Our family went to the Green Lakes Trail before soccer games on Saturday.  I went off for my mother/daughter run with my sweet girl and we brought Ashe along for fun.  He's so gentle with her on the leash! 

View of Tumalo Creek from the Shevlin Park Trail.  

So long to clean trail shoes!  These Brooks Cascadias are so DUSTY!! I love these shoes.  

Um, this has nothing to do with trail running.  But it is darn cute.  Our family surely has a  new completeness to it now that Ashe is here.  

1. How was your weekend?  Long runs?  Exciting plans?  Did you have a much needed lazy weekend?  
2. Do you run with your significant other on run dates?  

Amanda

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