Running in the backyard: the Issaquah Alps Provide the Perfect Training Ground for Competitive Runners

The greater Seattle area, famous for its urban appeal, is home to leaders of technology and business. Despite the development of this metropolis, Seattle and the surrounding suburbs are situated within minutes of beautiful urban parks and woodland environments. Outside Issaquah, Cougar, Tiger, and Squak mountains--affectionately known as the Issaquah Alps-- are connected by a system of trails that provide a forest sanctuary for not only Pacific Northwest wildlife, but also for birdwatchers, hikers, and nature lovers. However, it’s not just the casual outdoorsperson who enjoys these trails: the Issaquah Alps are a major training ground for competitive ultrarunners. 

Ultrarunning, which defines running distances greater than a marathon, is usually run on trails, sometimes over mountains and through remote wilderness areas. To prepare for ultra races-- which can be 50, 100, or even 200 miles-long-- runners perform frequent high-mileage, multi-hour training sessions, which are difficult to schedule around nine-to-five jobs and families. Unlike some professional sports such as football, professional runners often still work full-time and must fit in their training before sunrise or late at night. For Seattle-area runners, the Issaquah Alps make this balance possible.

Kaytlyn Gerbin training on Tiger Mountain. Photo by Ely Gerbin.

Kaytlyn Gerbin, an Issaquah resident with a PhD in bioengineering, works as a scientist at the Allen Institute in Seattle. Despite holding a high-level job, she’s also a professional, internationally ranked runner, whose successes include a second-place finish in the 2018 Western States 100-miler in California and first-place at the 2020 Transgrancanaria 128-kilometer race in Spain. In addition to her professional running trophies, Gerbin is an accomplished mountaineer and endurance athlete who has set speed records on legendary Pacific Northwest routes such as the Wonderland Trail, the Mt. Rainier Infinity Loop, and the Ptarmigan Traverse. For Gerbin, access to local trails is critical for her to maintain balance between both her professions, prompting her move to Issaquah to be closer to the Alps. “After spending a few years living in Seattle while I was in graduate school at the University of Washington, my husband and I were ready to move closer to the trails. At that time I was driving to Issaquah or North Bend to train on the trails a few times a week, and had developed a love and appreciation for the Issaquah Alps.” Gerbin regularly puts in 10 to 20 hours per week on her backyard trails. “I am fortunate to have access to trails close to home year round. The variety of terrain and elevation gain here without ever leaving Issaquah is perfect for my training - I can head to downtown Issaquah for a flat speed workout along the Issaquah-Preston trail, or climb up and over the peaks for vertical training. To me, this makes a big difference in my ability to manage time-consuming training with my work as a scientist,” Gerbin said.

Rich Lockwood, a Seattle-area competitive ultrarunner who works a rigid schedule as an interventional radiology technologist at Harborview Medical Center, agrees that “having a trail system that you can get to quickly and easily is key” for maintaining ultrarunning fitness. Lockwood, who didn’t own a car when he began running in the Issaquah Alps, commuted to the trails from Seattle through a combination of biking and bus rides, a feat that would not have been possible without the proximity of this expansive trail system. After a few years of success as a road runner, in 2017 Lockwood, also a snowboarder and mountaineer, transitioned his love of running to the trails and began training in the Alps up to three times a week. This regimen helped facilitate a quick rise in the mountain running scene, where later that year he took third place at the Beacon Rock 50K--his first-ever trail race--and second-place in his first 100-miler, the 2019 Teanaway Country 100. This course covers a staggering 30,000 feet of elevation gain, which Lockwood trained for by tailoring his training to match the race course: to prepare for the rigorous climbs of Teanaway, Lockwood concentrated his training to repeats on Tiger’s Chirico trail, which gains nearly 2,000 feet in less than two miles. Likewise, Chirico’s steep descent provided practice running quickly down steep, rugged terrain. Gerbin also favors the Alps for their ability to mimic the range of landscapes she might encounter in a long race, explaining that the “trails offer a variety of terrain, elevation gain, and rocks, roots, and other obstacles to train on. It often means I’m hiking up steep climbs (we don’t only run!) and my pace varies a lot throughout a run on the trails,” allowing her to train in the style of an endurance race. “I’ve trained for some of the world’s most competitive and mountainous trail races by running in the Issaquah Alps. This is truly a world-class place to train,” Gerbin said.

Rich Lockwood placed 3rd in the 2020 IMTUF 100 mile race. Photo by Brianna Traxinger.

While the Alps provide a technical training tool for training, many runners choose to train in the Issaquah Alps for the same reason they were drawn to the sport of trail and mountain running in the first place: simply because they love to spend time in nature. Yitka Winn, a Seattle-area outdoor writer and competitive ultrarunner who set the female course record at the 2019 Cascade Crest 100-mile ultra, winning the race for the second year in a row, also chose to reside near the Alps so that she could access them for both training and relaxation. Winn said that the “amazing steep trails and forest service roads” within the Alps provide “a killer workout while also enjoying fresh air, beautiful scenery, and wildlife.” In addition to the elevation gain that these trails offer, Winn simply said that “they make training more fun!” She prefers the “natural beauty of the trails to the monotony and noise of the city (or treadmill) any day. I’ve come across deer, elk, bear, and even a mountain lion once in the last decade that I’ve been running in the Alps,” Winn said.

Yitka Winn running the Chirico Tenpeat on Tiger Mountain. Photo by Takao Suzuki.

Training on steep, mountainous trails provides an obvious edge to those who race in rugged terrain, but some benefits of trail running in the Alps are less obvious. “Before I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I primarily ran on roads, and was plagued with common runner injuries like shin splints and stress fractures,” Winn said. However, running consistently on softer, more forgiving surfaces (i.e., trails) and more varied terrain (i.e., not just flat, repetitive ground) pretty much eliminated overuse injuries for me,” she continued, citing that trails have “helped [her] to run pretty much injury-free for the past decade.” Lockwood, who regularly runs 40-60-miles per week, echoed this sentiment, explaining that running relatively soft trails (compared to pavement) allows him to train high-mileage with low impact, which is key for injury prevention. Lockwood added that unlike many of Washington’s mountains, the Issaquah Alps are runnable year-round, as they don’t receive heavy, consistent snowfall, providing “continuous training in the off-season to keep you fit.” This allows for a smoother transition into race shape during the summers, further decreasing the risk of overuse injuries that are common when increasing training loads, he said.

Although Winn, Gerbin, and Lockwood are all high-level athletes, the competitive nature of running isn’t their main attraction to the trails: it’s the community, made up of a mix of amateur and professional runners, that makes running in a shared trail system special. “The community of folks that enjoy these trails is incredibly vibrant, and it is fun to see familiar faces out there when I run the same trails over and over again. I have had so many wonderful conversations with hikers and runners alike while out running in the Alps,” said Winn, who originally met her husband George during a long trail run at Tiger Mountain. “We have put in countless training miles together in these hills over the years,” Winn continued. Winn, who is also a new mom, currently enjoys the nearby trails as a way to spend time with her family in nature. “Living within 20 minutes of the Issaquah Alps is the best of all worlds for me because not only can I get out for trail runs during the week, it also feels amazing to be able to make mountains a regular part of daily life with my baby girl and my three step kids,” Winn said. 

Yitka Winn pacing Rich Lockwood at the 2018 Teanaway Country 100 mile race. Photo by Brianna Traxinger.

For people who are drawn to the perks of city life but still desire to be near nature, the Seattle area, with its proximity to mountains and forest, provides the perfect compromise. “I lived in tiny mountain towns in rural Colorado for a number of years in my twenties, and the trail access out my back door was fantastic. But career opportunities there were limited and at some point, in order to grow in my career and ever get financially stable enough to start a family, I felt like I needed to move back to a more urban area,” Winn said. The Issaquah Alps provide the mountain access that many city-dwellers, like Winn, crave, connecting many surrounding urban areas with a shared woodland sanctuary, which brings together nature-lovers of all types. While not everyone who enjoys the Issaquah Alps is a serious runner, or a runner at all, we’re all drawn to the trails for the same reasons: to escape city life for a few hours, get exercise, and visit with friends. Some just enjoy the trails at a faster pace, in preparation for the next big race.