My article is about racing car-free. That is, starting the run, bike, or multi-sport event from your home, with getting to the start becoming the first part of the fun.

You can pick up a copy if you live between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia. Not available on-line yet, but until then, you can read my previous articles on the ANW website.

Now my thoughts and words are included in Mina’s Run Like A Girl: How Strong Women Make Happy Lives, published February 2011 by Seal Press. I’m excited to read women’s experiences, and once again reminded about the changes in opportunities within my lifetime. Title IV, which gave girls more equal opportunities in sports, came in when I was in junior high. There was no soccer for girls then, so I played on the boys’ team. Now I look at my junior high age daughter and smile at how different things are. She’s played soccer since she was five. With girls.

But Run Like A Girl isn’t about soccer, or any particular sport. It is about strong women making happy lives. And isn’t that what we want for our daughters? Whether with organized sports or through family outdoor adventure, I think the world is a better place when people are healthy, connected, strong, and happy.

This January, my daughter and I each turned in articles on our Ski to Sea race experiences to Adventures Northwest magazine for their spring issue. Dana focused on her junior Ski to Sea adventures as a three-legged racer, and I mused about car-free eventing. When the editors asked us to write a bio together, it was another opportunity to think ahead about our future adventures.

The bio we wrote: 7th grader Dana, and her mom Laural, love reading, writing, bicycling, hiking, and bilingual adventuring. A runner even when her leg isn’t tied to a friend, Dana thinks she’d like to mountain bike in the adult Ski to Sea some day. Laural’s first experience with Ski to Sea was the sailing leg in 1989, but her last decade on the road bike leg was more fun, and the car-free team the best yet. Their summer plans include backpacking in Mexico, climbing Sloan Peak, and bicycle camping in the San Juan Islands. For more on their family adventuring, check lauralringler.com.

Yahoo for adventure plans. I like those and we will be making even more, I’m sure. And that “bilingual adventuring” phrase? Dana’s. And I’ll surely be glad to share in those plans with her.

With three generations, and an age range of four years to sixty-somethings, we went with the four-year-old’s choice. He picked out an insect or other animal character for each of us (individuality!) but everybody got one (team spirit!). We laughed and had fun with it, and I’m reminded of other team times.

I was part of an all women relay team for several years where we all wore tiaras and glued fake jewels to our race numbers. I was in for the road bike leg, so I affixed the tiara to my helmet with clear packing tape. Easy to identify my teammates, smiles from spectators, fun all around. In fact, a friend from that team and I went on to a new team sponsored by a local pretzel bakery. “What are we doing?” she asked, “Wearing pretzel hats or mustard yellow?” We didn’t. Just team t-shirts that time. Hadn’t thought about temporary tatoos…

My last snow experience though, was a 5-day August trip in the Cascades mountains. With the kids safely at the grandparents, my husband and I headed off on a high traverse we’ve been wanting to do for years. We had an amazing weather window, and an incredible backcountry experience. Daunting that the glaciers are smaller, though – I feel so lucky to live near them and be able to get out into the mountains.

We traveled light, but with the glacier travel gear (ice axes, crampons, harnesses & rope), and wandered among the mountain goats, camping near alpine lakes.

Ah, snow.

I love the talk of “PRs,” personal records as people improve their times throughout the season. And I love that athletes finish their race, and then turn to cheering on others still coming in.

Cross country season is adding positively to our family, encouraging all of us to get out more, and may even turn all of us into runners. Because I’m the only one in the family not running, and I’m feeling inspired.

Thus there are a number of start lines, one of which the kayak must be towed to by bicycle, for example. The logistics become an entertaining pre-race planning aspect, and make for more community involvement too. That is, non-racing community members seemed entertained by Tom riding his mountain bike to Lake Padden while one-handedly pushing the road bike that Ben would use when he arrived from running the first leg. Or community members smiled to see me tandem bicycling my brother-in-law to the race start. Fun stuff, and outdoor adventure even for those of us not racing.

The mothership motored ahead for a bit, then paced us alongside (“you’re making almost 5 knots” dad yelled), and finally settled in behind us.

With the weather a bit grey, we were happy to slide into Mail Bay and land right onto the beach. The mothership, of course, had to fiddle with their anchor and their dinghy to come ashore. Two very different species (the whale and the minnow?), double the options for the kids, an awesome adventure to Waldron Island.

Since Dana would have plenty of non-paddling ride time, she became chief dolphin counter and eagle spotter. I also gave her a grease pencil, which other kayakers would use to mark compass bearings on their deck for glancing at easily. She had free reign to decorate our kayak, and used her creativity to document our journey. If you look carefully, you’ll see she’s noted “awesome person” with an arrow to herself. Her dad got “primate” with a similar arrow pointing at him.

She mostly wrote while we were paddling, but she did write “paddle mom” and a few other comments in front of me before we launched.

The grease pencil was well worth it, and the illustrated kayak makes me smile. I wonder how long we can leave it on before it becomes permanent. On the other hand, perhaps the artist needs a clean slate for her next thoughts.

Figuring our family of four would not get picked up together, we split up. Dad & daughter vs. son & mom – let’s see who gets back to the car first. The daughter & dad duo got a ride out of the trail parking lot with some day hikers who had decided to change their starting point and agreed to take them back down the road.

Noah and I started walking from the hike parking lot towards the main road, and in a few minutes I heard a rumble behind us. I turned around and stuck out my thumb. The van pulled over, and we clambered in next to the couple’s dog. They were only going as far as the reservation, but could drop us at the intersection of the main road out of town, and were very sociable all the while.

That ride left us next to the tourist info office (note the whale behind Noah – though it had seen better days, the whale’s tail was not quite connected to the body anymore). We spent a half hour thumbing passing cars with no luck. I turned to Noah and suggested he smile some and look more adoptable. Then an SUV pulled over and it was a father & son duo we’d seen on the trail. Yahoo!

We were grateful they stopped and got to compare notes about our experiences on the trail. After awhile, we looked out to see the other half of our family on the roadside with thumbs out. They looked so darn cute I couldn’t believe someone hadn’t stopped for them. So we piled them into the backseat with Noah & I.  We were dropped at the trailhead turnoff, gave sincere thanks to our driver, and walked to our car.

Despite all of the dire warnings about break-ins at the trailhead, the car was untouched. We happily headed on to a grocery store where we got what looked good (fresh fruit & veggies, sandwiches, chocolate milk), and debriefed our family hitchhiking.