Dehydrating season

 It's that time of year again, our Prune, Pear and Apples trees are really producing. Our dehydrator is running non-stop trying to keep up. So yummy!

Our Frog

     As I mentioned in this post -

(http://hearsdifferentdrummer.blogspot.com/2012/07/hollyhock-heaven.html), 

I was hoping to catch our resident frog on the back of the duck decoy 

that floats in our Koi pond....and success!

I spotted him on the duck decoy when I fed the Koi, so I ran in and got my camera.
(just click on the picture to enlarge it)

 

I crept closer hoping to get a good close shot.

 I couldn't believe it he stayed on the duck decoy and let me snap away!

Seaside and Emerald City Marathons

As I look forward to my marathon, I can't help but look back. 

This Saturday's 18 mile training run with B'ham fit is a marker for me. I decided to investigate just how long it had been since I had run that distance.

It turns out I haven't ran that far since 1986, 26 years ago.

Here's Saturday's 18 mile course in sections:

(click on the pictures to enlarge them)

While I was going through my log books. I found this booklet my dad had made everyone in the family for Christmas gifts in 1979!

The cover

He had included several helpful charts.

Plus, some inspirational quotes and pictures.

The back cover

 While I did my researching it was fun to go down memory lane in my log books. 

I am preparing for the Humboldt Redwoods marathon in October. I will probably run it in about 7 hours (I would like it to be more like 6 1/2 hours),

quite a bit after they close the aid stations and the course.

(There is a 5 hour limit, which is when they will let the cars back on that section of the road. After that you're on your own for aid. The official clock may go till 6 hours, so I won't be in the results)

my goal is to just finish.

The first marathon I ran was the Trails End marathon (the pre-entry fee was only $7)  in Seaside, Oregon in Feb. 25, 1978. I had just turned 24 years of age. I had our 3rd child just 6 months before this. Here I am running with my mom. We finished with a time of 4:22:08. 

My mom on the left, me on the right.

We got a trophy for 1st place in the Mother/Daughter division. My father had run it as well (he finished well ahead of us) and we got a trophy for 2nd place in the Father/Daughter division.

I ran the Emerald City marathon in Seattle, Washington. 

March 18, 1984, I had just turned 30 years of age in February.

I ran with my husband and we finished in a time of 3:48:30.

I then ran the Trail's End Marathon again on Feb. 22, 1986.

I earned my 3:30 - 4:00 hour card, at that time they handed out a card if you made it under a certain time. I ran 3:59:54. Whew...just under 4 hours! Such a windy, rainy day that was.

Fun times!

Hollyhock Heaven

Hollyhocks - (my favorite flower), now blooming in our yard!

I also found these Hollyhocks growing on a street corner in Fairhaven!

and a picture of our resident frog (sitting on the ledge), sometimes he likes to ride on the floating duck's (to the left near the Hosta blooms) back! If I ever am able to catch it on one of his rides I'll try to get a photo!

Summer Parks Concert in a new city park (Woodstock Farm)

Woodstock farm is a property the City of Bellingham Parks and Recreation acquired and is now a new public city park.

To learn more about this wonderful place go to this link:

http://www.cob.org/services/recreation/parks-trails/woodstock-farm.aspx.

The buildings are closed and can be used for activities and require a reservation, but the grounds are free to roam and enjoy (as long as it's not being used for a private event).

Map and info. boards for the site.

Sunday (July 1) was the first Summer Concert in the Parks concert at this site.

To see the City's full Summer concert series schedule go to this link: http://www.cob.org/services/recreation/activities/concerts-in-the-park.aspx

It's worth strolling the grounds to see the beautiful plants and trees,
but the real reason we came here today was to enjoy the sites first scheduled concert!
We had a really nice day for it which was great because unlike the rest of the country we here in Whatcom county had been inundated with cloudy, rainy days for most of June.

During the bands intermission the P & R staff did tours of the big house and a walk to the Middens down at the beach access on the property. To learn about Middens go to this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden

View of the farm from the Midden trail

beach access

Middens (click to enlarge) - Archeological site * Do not disturb

Trail back to the farm from the Middens

The band that performed for todays concert was "Ranger and the Re-Arranger" - (Gypsy Jazz), from Bainbridge Island.
Here's a snippet of what they sounded like:

What a great way to kick off July!

Calf injury anniversary - what a difference a year makes!

It was one year ago this week that I tore my calf muscle. It was a long slow recovery, but I'm happy to say that I ran 10 miles on Saturday and all is well.
Our B'ham fit training run was from Zuanich park on Saturday, as I was running up a hill I saw a large group of walkers coming towards me and was pleasantly surprised to see Djan (her blog: http://djanstewart.blogspot.com/) in their midst. I haven't seen her since I left the Trailblazer hiking group. I yelled a quick "hello", and thought I heard a reply. That was a fun moment during the run. My husband started an hour after me and I met him about 1/2 way back on the return of our route. So another bright spot!
After my run I jumped in the car and drove to Snohomish and picked up my 3 grand daughters and then drove on to Sequim to watch my dad run the North Olympic Discovery marathon. He finished 1st in the 75 & up division. He ran 5 hrs. 42 min.'s and 07 sec.'s. So proud of him and his accomplishments. Here's a link of his run last year with some nice pictures of the course and area -http://hearsdifferentdrummer.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-dad-marathon-man-north-olympic.html
He's also training to run 80 miles on his 80th birthday this coming November. You can read his training blog at this link - http://runningforeighty.blogspot.com/

    Grand daughters Ruby and Skylar running near the finish with my dad!

Kayaking at Fazon lake

Such a nice day today I decided to load my kayak in the van and go for a paddle! You can just see our van and the launch site across the lake.

There are lily pads around most of the shoreline. They were almost ready to bloom. I'll need to go back and get pictures when they do, an interesting thing about the lily pads - they are attached to these big bog roots. Up close they look like the outer part of a pineapple to me.

Nice view of Mt. Baker in the distance.

Thought I'd take a picture of my view from my kayak and then me!

Springtime bliss - joy of life

Joy of Spring

by David Whalen

A Spring morning

A warm Breeze

doves cooing softly

Pollen dusted trees

A few brave violets

A red streaked dawn

A very early robin

Earthworms in the lawn

Spring peeper frogs

Smell of dogwood blossoms

Nature's petroglyphs in muddy bogs

Footprints left by possums

Easter eggs and bonnets

Chocolate rabbits, Missing ears

Jelly beans and sonnets

Spilled easter baskets, children's tears

Parades,

leafy bowers

Lemonades

Spring showers

Spring mornings

Warm breezes

Deep breaths

Allergic sneezes

Smell of Fresh blossoms

Sound of birds as they sing

Joy of life....joy of being......Joy of Spring

Certificate of the right to play

Going through my papers today and found this,

insert your name and

" Go Play"!!

Click to enlarge

    
    

Springtime in Everson

Click to enlarge

Wishing you a happy spring!

Biking the northern section of the Centennial trail - Bryant to ArMar & back

     We had just glorious weather this last weekend so we decided to go biking on part of a route that we have been thinking about doing. The Snohomish county Centennial trail starts in Snohomish and at this point in time stops at Bryant. The trail is paved the entire distance. The distance one way is about 23 miles. Here's a link to the Snohomish county parks website page about the trail - http://www1.co.snohomish.wa.us/departments/parks/park_information/park_directory/regional_parks/centennial_trail.htm

Since our daughter and her family live in Snohomish we have been thinking that it would be a great trip to start from our home in Everson and ride to the northernmost section of the trail, continue on the trail to our daughters home which is not far from the trail start. We haven't sat down yet to determine just how many miles this would be, but some day we may be up for the challenge. We've decided that we would like to do it in sections first so we would be familiar with it in it's entirety. So yesterday we started in Bryant. There is a parking lot and sani - can at this point of the trail. The trail to the north is paved for 1 1/2 miles farther to the finished bridge, but no farther. As we were driving down we noticed what seemed to be a future parking lot for the trail near a large red barn and it looked like it had access to a trail in construction. After talking to others it seems that section may be done by this October. There is a website that gives updated trail information called "Trail link" here's a link to their website page about the trail -
 http://www.traillink.com/trail/centennial-trail-(wa).aspx .

The page was last updated (at the time of my writing this post) on February of this year, so it's not real up to date - but it did have some helpful information for us.
Here is a map of the trail, I inserted our route onto it. The black lines show our out route and the red lines show our return route.

The section that we did was a beautiful trail except for the area just south of Arlington. It is marked really well for the most part, with posts/painted lines/signs at each intersection with a road. The only section that could be confusing to people was just south of Arlington. The trail goes through the main part of down town really well, and there is a nice park there called Legion park . We stopped there for lunch. They have almost completed a visitor center/restroom building at the park, so that will be nice for people needing to use facilities at the point. The sign says it will be open this month (April 2012). After we left this part of town the trail seems to end abruptly. At this point there were no signs at all through a rather high traffic area of industrial and residential streets. We thought it would be logical to just follow the road and not make any turns and hope we would eventually find our trail markings again. We came upon a large cycling group from Seattle that were stopped by the side of the road just as we entered this directionless area. They had maps in hand and were very confused as to where to continue. After riding several miles we finally spied some metal posts in the sidewalk on the other side of the road. No signs or paint or anything telling us this was the Centennial trail. We followed these skinny posts that were now on most every corner until - hurray just after the 172nd avenue intersection we joined up with our familiar trail signs that we had enjoyed at our start at Bryant. We rode on to the ArMar (short for Arlington - Marysville) parking lot and sani - can area. The new part of the trail in this area is called the ArMar gap and it is really beautiful. When we turned around to begin our trip back we saw the confused Seattle cycling group coming towards us. We called out congratulations to them that they had found the trail as we had and we all beamed at each other. I really like the section just north of Arlington.
     It took us 2 hours and 40 minutes of "on" the bike time to do this northern section (with our out and back routing) - 19.6 miles. We rode at a leisurely speed and enjoyed it. It's kind of fun previewing a future idea piece by piece. Since it was Easter and a nice sunny day there was a lot of people out enjoying the trail.

Running and Kayaking

     I joined Bellingham fit (http://www.bellinghamfit.com/) to help me train in a safe and sane way for my Humboldt Redwoods Marathon in October. Now that I'm beginning to run again since my calf injury has healed, I thought that this would be a good option for me. I've now gone to two of the Saturday group runs and did my first week of the 6 month training schedule I was given for my pace.
Last week we ran once around Lake Padden 2.6 miles

at a pace that is comfortable to us, to determine which pace group to train with. I'm in the walk/run group which is fine with me. My goal is to run as much as possible. I'll probably stay with this group for my whole training time, since the next group up starts at 10 minute miles and I've not gone that pace for a long time.
      Now that the weather is trying to be a bit better we got our kayaks out of the top of the garage and took them to a small local lake - Fazon lake (http://www.fishwhatcom.com/lakesrivers/Fazon.html) a couple times this last week. It was so nice to be on the water again. I love my kayak, it's a Perception sport 10' 6", just the right size for me.

   

Chuckanut 50k 2012 and SPRING!

The Chuckanut 50k takes place in our neck of the woods and on Saturday. Not such good weather for the run as it can become a real mud bog. My husband and I ran on the trails last year while the 50k was going.

Here's my post about it and the mud -

 http://hearsdifferentdrummer.blogspot.com/2011/03/chuckanut-50k.html 

                                         
   This years start was very gray and rainy.

The runners before the aid station and the Fragrance lake trail turn off on the interurban trail.

** I'm adding this You Tube video after I'd already done this posting.**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwzf822La-o&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 I found this Chuckanut 50k 2012 You Tube video where I'm along the trail where the above picture was taken. In the video I'm the spectator on the right side of the trail, in the blue!

 There was about 3 inches of snow at Chuckanut ridge, the following blog post has great pictures of the day and some really good ones of the snow on the ridge and chinscrapper.

http://iantorrence.blogspot.com/2012/03/2012-chuckanut-50k.html

Here's another site that has some info and pictures of the day and the top 10 male and female finisher lists.

http://www.irunfar.com/2012/03/2012-chuckanut-50k-results.html

Here's a site that lists the complete results - you can select the info you want in just a few clicks.

http://realendurance.com/AllTimeList.php?a=C19#Years

It was great to be there and watch the event. I think we had the weather of all four seasons there during the day while we were watching.

Now I'm ready for SPRING!

Hyacinth in our flower bed - yippee!

What I want to look like at 60 years old.

I turn 60 in two years, I know - I'm horrified. 

This look is probably not going to happen in my lifetime, but a visual to keep my eyes on the mark to stay fit.

Time to FOCUS.