christopher575

Continuing yesterday's thought process, I decided it would be nice to start low, climb, and return, so I decided to park down at the beach instead of the dog park. Today was a good day for that.

Days that I know are going to be hot and awful later on start off really nice. The air's amazing, the sky is bright but still mild, and you can see forever.

Here's that lovely athletic shorts/running tights combo.

Stylish, eh?

The reason for leaving the car at the beach was so that it'd be at the lowest point, but there's no reason not to enjoy it while down there, so I walked the length of the Mukilteo Lighthouse Park before heading up the hill.

Is that not the dinkiest little lighthouse ever? I laugh when I see it. The area's still very lovely. The climb started immediately as I left the park. The road that leads out of the ferry terminal immediately heads up and over the railroad tracks, and is never flat for very long all the way until it ends up in my neighborhood, almost six miles away.

Since I recently explored the higher gulch trails on either side, it made sense to try the lower ones in the center.

I stand by my recent statements about not worrying when walking around on trails because they're designed to loop around or emerge somewhere. But I have an addendum: the trails have to be maintained for that to be true. The lower trails are currently more overgrown than I'll put up with.

Today's awesome walk, 5.22 miles in 1:58, 11,221 steps, 526ft gain

(5.22 miles in 1:58, 11,221 steps, 526ft gain)

You can't quite tell by where I marked the map with point A that I turned back on three different trail options before giving up and turning back to find a way across the water. But I guess that's fine since the trails down at that level would be pretty boring anyway.

Point B, where I crossed the water, had a pretty clear trail leading there, so I figured there'd be a small bridge. That was incorrect. Wet feet are how you get blisters, so I'm glad I was able to get all the way across stepping on rocks that were in the water, without getting wet.

I definitely warped the length of the bike trail in my mind. After I crossed the water I didn't think it would be long at all before it met up with the railroad tracks and I could cross to the paths on the other side. That spot, point C, was a lot farther away than I figured. That made the whole thing take a lot longer than I planned for, but that's ok. I also ended up going down the sandy path that I didn't want to go down yesterday, but at that point I was ready to be done and knew it would be the fastest way. It wasn't as scary as I thought it'd be.

The back pain came about four miles in, and it really wasn't a big deal. This is such a nice change from getting a few blocks before it became unbearable. I'm beginning to think that maybe being sick for a couple of weeks contributed to the healing.