Vivid Memories

It had been 30 years since I was in Seattle.  I went to graduate school at University of Washington in 1993-4 and during that time ran a lot of races and ran along the Burke-Gilman path and various places of note – including Green Lake.  Green Lake is a neighborhood about five miles north of Seattle and just three miles from the U-District where I lived.  So, I came here a couple times a month to take in the scene.  The path is a 2.75 mile shared multi-use path circling the lake, with plenty of bathrooms and water fountains.  Bikes, bladers, runners of all speeds, and walkers co-exist.  Groups of runners would meet at various places along the path, running various paces.  It was heavily used and the first path I had seen with lanes marked for type of users, direction, and speed.  If you were going “against the flow,” people called you out!  

We booked a stay in an Airbnb two blocks from Green Lake.  For me, that was one of the draws. So, this morning, I laced up and headed over to the park.  A few things had changed since I was here.  One, there is a bike lane adjacent to the surrounding streets, effectively siphoning off the speedy cyclists.  This was a pervasive issue in the 90s, and confrontations with pedestrians were common.  Two, there is now a wide dirt/crushed stone path along the paved path, used mostly by runners without concern for direction.  But otherwise, it was as if time had stood still.  The boathouse was renting boats and selling drinks, the quarter-mile dirt track on one side of the lake had not been upgraded to all-weather, and fishing docks attracted hopeful anglers.  In an eerie way it seemed I had just been here.  All the checkpoints around the path seemed familiar and many people smiled as I approached them, as if they recognized me.  Seattle is and was a friendly place! One key difference, however, was I used to pass a lot of people when running.  Now I was being passed or at best holding my own.  Time has passed as much as I’d like to think otherwise!

I suspect other memories will present themselves as I explore the U-District and other parts of Seattle.  But maybe not as much as the routes I ran.  I won’t have opportunity to race on this trip but expect those memories would be fresh too.  There is something about running, maybe every run, that becomes a part of us.  It may help that I don’t listen to music when running outside.  I tend to pay attention to what is around and certainly that helped in retaining my vivid memories of Green Lake.  Whatever the mechanism, it’s good to know some of those neurons from 30 years back are still there and can be called upon!