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Mt. Hood

August 13, 2017 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 60s and drizzling and foggy, 6,000 ft of elevation

Comments:
Drove out to Mt. Hood in the morning to do our run on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was absolutely spectacular, particularly in the fog and mist. Definitely one of the most beautiful runs I've been on in my life. We were going with dad technically, but we dropped him pretty early on so it was just Ana and I. Except for a steep up in the first couple minutes, the way out was almost entirely downhill. We flew down the trail, with beautiful sights on all sides. The way back was a little bit of a different story. It was a never ending uphill. Uncharacteristically, Ana had a tough time breathing, but I felt ok. My muscles burned some in long uphill stretches but we took more than a few stops and I found myself to be very recovered after each of those short breaks. Even though it was tough, it wasn't miserable and at the end I wanted to keep going, but we had to be back to meet friends for lunch. We were going quite slow on the way back. There was about 1100 ft of elevation gain, which was all in less than 3 miles, so it was not easy. I didn't feel the altitude as much as I expected. We've been staying at basically sea level, so I thought I'd feel it more. Since I'm running less these next couple of weeks, I'm trying to just enjoy it and not worry about pace and stuff, particularly on a trail like this one. I had a great time doing this run and I had a runners high for hours after. We later hiked back along the same trail for a little bit. I have no idea what the distance really is, since my watch was being wonky and showed us running completely in the opposite direction the trail at one point.