Our non-traditional Christmas* continued on Sunday. My brother and I were up in Skagit Valley Saturday night to visit some friends, and we stayed. Another beautiful morning, this time a bright sun was even out over the water as we drove up Chuckanut Drive. We picked up my friend Brita and met Krissy and Brenda at the Clayton Beach parking lot for a Chuckanut Mountain route. Kind of an early Chuckanut 50k warm up run, on a great morning for it. No real plan, and since we had Timm we didn't want to get too complicated with the route or go very long (actually, everyone was in favor of that second suggestion). So we headed out on the course, then cut up the Frangrance Lake trail instead of looping around the lake, descended Cleator Road (much nicer than the race's ascent) and then headed back via Fragrance Lake. We lost Timm at the end (he cut off Cleator, then got lost) but found him. Finding him, however, meant an additional 2.5 miles for me backtracking on the Interurban. I'm guessing it was a 10-mile day, though that could be short. But we did some hiking as well. Legs were tired by the end, but not blasted and I was surprised at how easily I climbed the hills. 2:01 or so all together.
brooks cascadia IV -- 34
*We didn't chuck all the trappings of Christmas, however. We did the family gathering on Christmas Eve, and went to the late church service, and Monday night my parents will be in town and we'll do our traditional Swedish Christmas. We just moved the dates around this year, freeing up some time for other stuff.
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