Today was an unusually warm and bright day (55 degrees and some sunlight!!) so I packed up and headed out to Greenlake. It was easy to find parking away from the main part of the town (not near the Bar and Grill or Starbucks) so I headed down to the lake. Apparently everyone else in Seattle had the same idea of spending the afternoon at Greenlake! There are two courses that you can take around Greenlake, the inner or outer loops.
Greenlake map via Valentine's Dash
Inner Loop (blue) 2.8 miles
Outer Loop (purple) 3.1 miles
The inner loops was COMPLETELY packed. There was no way that you could even walk through without getting in the path of others. Although this is the more paved, even and scenic route around the lake, it would have been HELL to try to run through the masses of walkers, dogs, strollers and people sipping their lattes.
I decided on running the outer loop, which was empty. Although it was muddy from the rain and had a few puddles, it was fairly flat and seems to be lit at night (a good thing to keep in mind for night running!) I was able to easily run the first outer loop once around, but quickly became tired from not eating beforehand. I ended up finishing just over 4.1 miles around in about 43 minutes (had some trouble with my radio app on the iPhone which made me stop TWICE!)
Also, after the run you can go to this Peet's Coffee for a latte (which is MUCH better than Starbucks!) and you can look through Super Jock n Jill sports which sponsors several local races including the Torchlight training runs around Greenlake every Thursday in July. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon!
There are also some good trails near the ballparks and the zoo area next to the lake!
ReplyDeleteReally? I'll have to check them out! I love Greenlake but it gets so crowded....I could always use alternate routes!
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