My brother had to have a detached retina put back in place and to be honest, I admire his grit through this one. I learned more about eyes than I knew and learned more about my brother than I knew too. This required some trips up to Seattle to see him through and I managed to get in a few trail runs in the Issaquah Alps trails system, a set of trails just east of Seattle in the Cascade Mountain foothills. Plus running with my regular “Noon Group,” along with the recent trail race, the Rainbow Ridge 20k.

My brother, pre-surgery under a wonderful warm air-filled blanket. Cozy and comfy is part of the prep!

Tiger Mountain is part of the Issaquah Alps and this tree is blocked out with a sign telling a bit about it. These trails are very popular for hiking, running and some mountain biking. I enjoyed my runs on them on each trip I took up to Seattle.

The “Noon Group” of runners who do not run at noon anymore. Almost all of them are retired now, but we all meet up on Saturdays and get out for a good bit, rain or shine.

From this past weekend, here I am running on the Rainbow Ridge 20k trail race. I was planning on just having an easy run of it, but I often take the word race literally and give it a good go, which I did here. It was a 12.4 mile race with about 2800 feet of elevation gain. The first 10k was all up, and then the last 10k was all down, the same way we went up. Good race with wonderful people and some nasty yellow jackets feeling the cool air and looking for anyone to sting. Ouch!

Sara had a birthday which was cause for Nora to make and decorate the cake. It was yum. Yum and more yum.