Cle Elum

With a cooler in the back full in grocery, a case of wine, the tempo shoes, the trail shoes, the cliff bars and mini bottles of champagne we took the long way all the way to a bikini roadstop latte drip drop foam head and on. To Leavenworth, for a beer in the garden of wood and exposed blue and flitting birds between the cracks of the bricks. Being fork-fed thai on the bends of I-90 to Cle Elum, the city I can't say, with the minute details of where to turn and bend and curve at what tree for what fraction of distance to the top of this grand mountain, mass acreage splayed for us four, in fountains, four-wheelers, totem poles, birds everywhere, a thunder of frogs, and horse tracks.

Mr. Microsoft made pasta prima verde, shared over wine and the plaything, Oreo, a 6-week old golden lab asleep at our feet. Our upstairs room was a mix of corn husk-barn art, sliding barn doors and all the fruity scents of an incredible escape, with a balcony overlooking the tops of trees, from which, in the morning, you could see bend, and it was evident that the workout planned would be at the hands of Anemoi or Eurus. A piece of buttered toast and a mug of cold-brewed coffee before I started the run. The mileage out had the wind at my back, and after a long warm up, I started the 2 min on/1 min off, 1 min on/30 sec off, 30 sec on/ 30 sec off x six, workout/LR combo. Naively turning to finish a couple more sets against the wind, I was crying, snot ran down my nose, my legs were kicking each other, and the ditch was like an incredible sucking hole - I ran through a twister. My approach to these sort of weather snafu's in regards to planned workouts is this - just keep going with what you had planned. It's like the best for building confidence. Had I attempted the next day, I'd have had a much more enjoyable and complicit-to-the-training-specs type of workout, but I had boozing and relaxing in mind, and wanted everything to go as designed.

Sucked the life out of me. Took a long hot shower and napped for a few hours before we headed into town to check out a meat shop. Foggy glass protecting yards of meat rope, ribs, bacon, sausage. A wall of chili-jellies, jams, rubs, teas, salsas, mixes. It was the willy wonka of meat. I wish I had filmed in there. It was like being transplanted to 1950, Translyvannia, with a bunch of Italians heckling each other and you, with patrons licking the saliva off their teeth. We went to a bar for some beers and moscow mules made by this black-haired, crystal blue-eyed sass who told us stories of offending hookers and breaking cigarettes. After having been involved in a twister, I think the mule got the synapses firing, slightly.

We drove into Roslyn, to the Brick Saloon, which was something out of a movie. Walking into the bar, a man dropped stiff, his body straight as board, to the wood floor, and the community fell to their knees. Tilted him to his side, made sure he was breathing, called 911, tried to wake him. He came to, was loaded into the ambulance, and the rest of us kept looking at the spot where he lay mesmerized by a story we'd never hear the end to. We played shuffleboard, headed to the house in the woods for dinner.

Various cheeses, a little red wine, crackers & sliced fruit, book reading, the fireplace lit. We watched Boondock in love sacks beneath blankets and dozed till the ribs were rubbed and put on the grill, the salad tossed and a special bottle opened. A heavy sleep. A less winded Sunday, an easy long run on long flat roads against pastures and a chihuahua attack and back to a meat-rific breakfast.