Finding Places to Run While Traveling

Finding places to run while traveling has always been an adventure, and our recent trip to Bellevue Washington was no exception. Four days of running led to somewhat lackluster routes, but not for a lack of trying!

Day 1: Headed south from the condo in Bellevue, on a search for Mercer Slough Nature Park, the only large "green spot" on the local map. Found the park, but quickly ran out of real estate there, as a one mile loop pretty much covered it, as far as I could tell. It was a well maintained trail, with either wooden planks or soft mulch for most of the footing. A lot of tall vegetation on both sides was a bit claustrophobic at times. I came across this sign, which pointed out that my one mile loop was actually called the Heritage trail, and that the farm land I saw was a blueberry farm. At any rate, so much for that--back to the condo I went.

Day 2: After studying the park map more closely, it looked like there was an exit to the park if one kept to the right after several intersections. Once out of the park, one could run several miles in either direction. Toby drove us to the park to start the run and off we all went to find the exit. I thought I was making progress until I recognized a sign I had passed earlier--I was traveling in a circle! After 2 1/2 miles of this madness my calves were screaming from the soft mulch so I became desperate to find this "exit". I ran to what I originally brushed off as a dead end the first time around and there it was! The glorious exit with asphalt, precious asphalt, heading in two directions. I headed south and found the I-90 trail, and from there I ran to Entai beach where I took these photos:

Upon returning I learned that Brett never found his way out and continued to run in circles. His calves were killing him the next day!

Day 3: I had Toby drop me off near the entrance to the I-90 trail so I could run and out and back along it, towards Seattle, and get some distance in. No adventures to be had here--the route pretty much ran parallel to the I-90 freeway as expected, but luckily most of the path was separated by a giant wall. There were a lot of commuters on bicycles. The only rough part was the part that crossed the water over to Mercer Island, as there was no giant wall separation from the freeway... During rush hour traffic. Ugh...I made it as far as the Mercer Island Park and Ride before I had to turn back. It would have been fun to have ran all the way to Seattle--I was only shy about 4 miles!

Day 4: Last day in Bellevue--a rainy morning and only time for a quick run. I decided to head north this time to take this photo of the place we had great sushi--just to prove that you can't judge a book by its cover!

From there I continued north to attempt to run in Kirkland, which is a really cool suburb, but the pedestrian path ended due to major construction. I didn't have time to be adventurous with a detour, so I turned back, thus ending my running adventures in Bellevue, Washington.