Back to the beginning...

In the beginning...ok, I won't go back that far.  Before getting to the good stuff (the runs), I wanted to write an intro on how my peak a weekin got started...to give credit where credit it due I guess.  Anyways, it's a brilliant idea:  get out of the city and into our amazing trails system once a week for a run.  I mean, as a runner, who doesn't get sick of pounding the pavement every day.  I grew up running Lord Hill Park for practice (xc and track) every Wednesday in high school and while running for WWU, I trained in Bellingham's incredible trail systems: Chuckanut Mt., Lake Padden, and Galbraith, ext.  Needless to say, when I heard about "Peak a Week" from Dan Weldon a few years ago, I was intrigued.

For those of you who don't know, my wife and I lived in Wisconsin for 4 years and somewhat recently (end of last summer) moved back to Washington.  I enjoyed running in Wisco, thanks to Freddy Garcia and the Tremper distance boys, but I really missed running hills and doing long climbs in the mountains.  So when Dan stopped in Chicago for a quick visit on his way to Pennsylvania, we got together for a run and a quick tour of the city and he shared his peak a week idea with me.  He and our mutual friend Michael Hughes (Mikey) were planning on running up a mountain in the Cascades once a week.  How amazing does that sound?!  To me, it sounded like heaven to an incline deprived runner in the Midwest.  So when I moved back to Seattle in August, I had "Peak a Week" on my mind.

Of course, thinking about something and putting it into action are two totally different things.  My biggest problem with the action part of running up a mountain once a week was the fact that my legs had to first get used to any hill running.  Just the first few weeks of running hills in Seattle made my legs scream.  I remember one regrettable run from home in north Greenwood, down to Ballard, and back up home where I couldn't believe how long and hard the hill from Ballard up to Crown Hill was...I wasn't quiet ready for running up a mountain when I could barely handle Seattle hills.  Plus, I decided to train for my first Marathon (Portland) in September and I was too overly concerned about injury to dare stray from my "safe" running routine. 

I knew though that as soon as my marathon recovery was over, I was going to throw caution to the wind and start my long awaited "peak a week" runs.  So when I saw Mikey in the store the week before Portland, I told him, "As soon as I'm done recovering from my marathon, we're gonna start peakin'."  Lucky for me, he was as excited as I was about getting it going on a weekly basis.  Two and a half weeks after my marathon, Mikey and I, plus my co-worker Daniel Julian, started "peak a week" with Mt. Si and we've been going strong ever since.