Sunday, August 2, 2009

Tillamook Burn

A group of us headed to the beach this weekend to escape the heat and to run in the Tillamook Burn. We rented a house in Pacific City and were able to visit family, including a feast at Kathy & Skip's on Saturday night including fresh Tuna, Salmon and Crab... delicious!

This morning Bob, Rebecca, Travis and I set out to run our first adventure race. None of us knew what we were getting ourselves into. All we knew was that the course was about 6 miles long and that we would be running up hills and through creeks. We showed up and could tell we were rookies compared to the regular crowd who does these types of races. Knowing there were some hard core runners, we decided to start out at the back of the pack. I guess there's a reason they call this the Tillamook Burn, after the first hill, which there is no way you could run up it, and your lungs and legs are burning you realize what you've gotten yourself into. We climbed several hills (aka mountains), crossed the creek at least 4 times and manuvered around 3 bee hives with each of us getting stung at least once, but we all escaped the run without injury and smiles on our faces.