The Assault on Mt Hood will be held on December 12th, 2015

During our Tuesday night club run, the AOMH race director took us on a bushwhack run to lay out the course.

I had planned to go out and do 3 to 5 miles and call it good. I had my reflective vest and headlamp and was ready to go. As I stood outside the Knights of Columbus waiting for my Garmin to grab a satellite signal Brian Slater asked me to join the group running up to Mt. Hood.

At first I resisted the offer. I just wanted to run a few miles and go to the Board meeting. But Brian and Ed and Courtney kept encouraging me to go for the run. I wasn’t even sure how to get to the golf course from The Knights. Were we going to run to Mt. Hood or drive there and run the course?

Eventually the draw of the adventure had me running down the street with the gang heading to Mt. Hood golf course.

I wasn’t sure where we were going so I just followed along. We had a good time talking as we ran along at a pretty good clip. Our first mile was 9:39 of mostly uphill and talk the entire way. It felt like we were running more like 8:30. Around mile two we arrived at Mt. Hood golf course and ran up that hill.

Brian knew where he was going and the layout of the golf course. I think we were there just to scare off the racoons and to provide enough light for him to see his way. He kept calling out land marks and quizzing us on which hole we were at. We guessed right about 10% of the time.

Check out the map of our run through the golf course, in the dark.

All of those squiggly lines are only about 3 miles.

Up and down hills, on a tar path, rock path and across a lot of un-even and hilly golf course.

All of this was in the dark with only our headlamps to light our way.

My depth perception isn’t fantastic in broad day light. In the dark with very little light and lots of shadows it was a challenge.

I’ve run this race twice before, so I’ve run some of these hills in broad day light, and they are freakin steep! Even more fun in the dark, let me tell you.

Assault on Mt. Hood Bushwack Run

As we ran through the dark and bushes Brian kept a running monologue on where we were, how the course went last year. He asked Mike and the others what they thought about this part of the course or changing the route to another way this year. I think I was just there in case a really big raccoon showed up.

I ran in the back of the pack for the entire run. I wasn’t sure where I was going and I needed as much light as possible to see where I was going. While Brian kept talking about the course and ribbing us for not knowing where we were on the golf course, we kept a running dialogue going in the peanut gallery.

My Tuesday Night Club Run turned into a really fun run in the dark. All of us were veteran runners and had lot’s of stories and experiences to talk about during the run. What runner doesn’t like to talk about running?

I love new runs, adventure and trying new things. I’m not a trail runner, so running a trail in the dark was a real adventure. Some of the hills were really steep, both up and down. At times I had a hard time telling where the hill ended the the ground evened out. I’m not blind but my eyes are far from perfect.

While I was initially reluctant to break from my weekly running routine, it turned out to be one of the funnest runs I’ve been on in a long time.

Have you been on any unusual runs lately?

Do you get in a rut of running the same routes every week?

Run well my friends!

Andy

© 2015 andrew nagelin