For Week 12, we took our operation east to the Washington Park Arboretum for a welcome change of pace and scenery. Unlike our wild trail runs at Discovery and Carkeek Parks, the Arboretum trails are relatively flat and manicured, with a wide assortment of trees and plants to observe and enjoy along the way.
We started at the parking lot outside the Seattle Japanese Garden and headed up the wooded trail across the road. I’m not too familiar with the trails there, which frequently branch off into smaller paths through the groves, and I’m not entirely sure which paths we took for our run. The basic idea was to run north, to take the narrowest paths we could find, to avoid the paved paths on the eastern and western sides, and to eventually reach the northern botanical gardens before returning to the south playfield and playground. I’m pretty sure we passed through the Woodland Garden, the Japanese Maples grove, the Rhododenron Glen, and Camellias, with a brief stop in the Lookout Gazebo early in the hike. We frequently lost our bearings, though the bright morning sun made it impossible to truly lose our way. The entire loop ended up being just under 3 miles.
Following our usual 100 pushups at the Washington Park Playfield, we did several sets of uchikomi, this time in judogi tops instead of using bands. It felt good to be one small step closer to returning to actual judo practice. We wrapped up the session with some pull-ups and hanging on the judogi suspended from the play equipment.
As always, thank you to Maki, Leslie and Kozue for feeding us!
