The weather was supposed to be 54 and partly sunny; instead, it was 45 and foggy. Based on the forecast my girlfriend thought it'd be a good idea to go some place new. We decided on Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park near Bellevue. It's very close to Seattle and over 3,000 acres, making it the biggest park in King County.

I charted out my course last night on the park's trail map. We started out at the Coal Creek Trailhead, which is actually outside to the northwest of the park, but it connects with it. It is also 3 miles long, which automatically makes my run 6 miles because that was the only way to get back to the car. BTW, I was "supposed to" run 16 today. So, once in the park, I picked out a route (shown in the map below) which I thought would be another five miles. It turned out to be much shorter and my final mileage was probably about 9.5-9.75 miles. My Forerunner read 9.29, but I lost the signal a couple of times and the trails I took were curvy. They were also muddy and hilly which made for a slow run--it took almost 2 hours!

The mud aside, the trails are great--there is lots of very green vegetation typical of a temperate rain forest, such as ferns, moss, and various deciduous and coniferous trees. I only saw two groups of 2 people along the way. The only drawback was that I could hear construction at the western edge of the park. It was actually barely noticeable, but it annoyed me that suburban sprawl is so close to a park that looks almost like a primeval jungle.

Total: 9.5mi Run