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April - June 2020
When covid hit...
When covid hit...
I was working in retail at Feathered Friends, and I had WEEKS upon weeks where I couldn't go into work. It drove me crazy. I know there were plenty of people in my position, so I am sure some of you can relate. I was lucky enough to work for a company that treats their employees really well, and for that I am very grateful. BUT I still needed to figure out what to do with myself!
If you've ever looked into the ultra running community, you've probably ran across the decorated ultra runner, Ricky Gates. I personally love how he runs through life, and uses his runs to glean information about where he's at and explore places he cares about. He is most known for running across the United States by himself, and also for running every single street in San Francisco.
Being a high level ultra runner, he did every single street in large chunks and tried to do it in a quick fashion. And by quick, I mean covering all of San Francisco in 40 days and nights. All 1200+ miles. Crazy. But me only being an aspiring ultra buff, decided I should start small, and take my time. I was really curious to feel like I was exploring a new spot in a place where I had lived for so many years! At the time, Dan and I were living on Dexter Ave. N, right at the base of Queen Anne hill, and I decided I was going to run all of Queen Anne hill. I defined the hill by the borders of Dexter, Mercer, Elliot, 15th, and Nickerson streets.
Some of my favorite stairs and walkways.
Some of my favorite flowers and plants that I saw on my runs! It helped that I was doing this in spring.
I started out by investigating what it would be like to run the entirety of one street, from one side of the hill to the other. My first run consisted of running all of Galer, and all of Garfield back home. I absolutely loved it. Queen Anne happens to be a very interesting place to run. Due to the steepness of the hill at parts, there are many routes that I can run more efficiently than a car can. There are also a lot of stairs, and these, while tiring, keep a city run interesting. I used the site called "Seattle All-Stairs" a lot to find interesting stairs to run! Check it out! It's a ton of fun. Running each street one by one, I started eating away at Queen Anne. I would often start on the East side, run to the West to get a view of the water and of Magnolia hill in the distance, and then I'd run back to the East side to see Lake Union, at times Lake Washington, and Capitol Hill.
Overall I ended up running all of Queen Anne hill in 33 days over 79 days total. It took me 141.72 miles total and 27 hours and 31 minutes of running time.
I quickly found some of my favorite things in this neighborhood, and I have them listed out below. Take a look!
FAVORITE VIEWS:
The view from 5th Ave. N and Lynn
The view from Marshall Park, Kerry Park and Bhy Kracke park (of course).
Soundview Terrace
The very West end of W Garfield St. just past 11th Ave. W
The dead-end of McGraw St. just past Bigelow Ave. N
FAVORITE PARKS / P-PATCHES:
Queen Anne P-patch
Trolly Hill Park
Parsons Gardens
Kinnear Park
FAVORITE BUILDINGS:
201 Galer St.
3205 13th Ave. W
SPU's Peterson Hall
2533 Westlake Ave. N
FAVORITE STAIRS:
Comstock Stairs (W Comstock St. and 1st Ave. N)
Stairs connecting 8th Ave. W to Marshall Park
Stairs at W Blaine St. and 9th Ave. W
W Armour Stairs from 15th to 13th Ave. W
Stairs from 9th Ave. W and W Cremona to W Dravus
Through this endeavor, I found a website called City Strides. I loved the convenience of it, so I paid for an account to support this cool website! The features are really worth the payment if you're trying to tackle streets in your city. Check out what I've ran here! (It takes just a bit to load, but it is worth it!) So far I have ran just over 6.4% of Seattle. I am excited for more streets to come!
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