2021 Carkeek Warmer

07/06/2021

5k & 10k

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

4:00pm-7:00pm Start Window

Carkeek Park, Seattle, WA

Carkeek is home to six miles of fun, roller-coaster trails that traverse the forest! The trails range from wide and rolling, to narrow and steep. If ever you’re feeling like the climb is tough, remember that you get to fly back down!

2021 TUESDAY NIGHT TRAIL TO GRILL SERIES

June 8 – RAVENNA RUN THE RAVINE
4k, 8k, 12k, Ravenna Park, Seattle, WA

June 22 – SUNSHINE SALUTATION
5 mile & 9 mile, Redmond Watershed, Redmond, WA

July 6 – CARKEEK WARMER
5k & 10k, Carkeek Park, Seattle, WA

JULY 20 – SEWARD SIZZLER
4.2 mile & 10k, Seward Park, Seattle, WA

AUGUST 3 – SUMMER EDDY
4 mile & 8 mile, St. Edward State Park, Kenmore, WA

AUGUST 17 – INTERLAKEN ICE CREAM DASH
5k & 10k, Interlaken Park, Seattle, WA

AUGUST 21 – SUMMER BLAST @ REDMOND WATERSHED
5 mile & 9 mile, Redmond Watershed, Redmond, WA

Thank you to Oiselle for helping promote the Tuesday Night Trail to Grill Series. Bring in your bib number post race or proof of race registration and get 15% off any item at the Seattle Flagship store in University Village!

Registration
Results & Photos
COVID-19 Safety Measures
Course Description
Schedule
Directions & Parking
Apparel
Hot dogs, watermelon, & more!
Safety, Etiquette, Dogs

Registration

Use the red registration button on the left to register for multiple Tuesday Night Trail to Grill Series events at once. Register for two races to get a 5% discount on your entry fees, three races to get a 10% discount, and four or more races to get a 15% entry fee discount. The green button on the right links to registration just for this race.

Online pre-registration closes Monday, July 5 at 11:59pm. Event-day registration will be available for start time blocks with remaining capacity. We accept cash, card, or check made payable to Northwest Trail Runs.

Results & Photos

2021 Results & Photos courtesy of Aaron Roche

2020 Results & a few photos by Heather Gonzalez

2019 Results & Photos courtesy of Lizzie Krawczak

2018 Results & Photos courtesy of Aaron Roche

2017 Results & Photos courtesy of Ross Comer

COVID-19 Safety Measures

Part of our duty as event organizers is to plan carefully for safety. We take this responsibility seriously, and we appreciate the trust you place in us by coming to our events. The COVID-19 pandemic meant a pause for our events that has just ended, but it has also meant a lot of extra work over the intervening months adapting our events to mitigate the new risks of the pandemic.

Because confusing and often conflicting or politicized information has created doubt and uncertainty about safety and relative risk, we want to briefly address the basic safety of trail running: The consensus opinion of the infectious disease experts is that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is far less likely to transmit from person to person outdoors, primarily due to the movement of air dispersing virus-bearing droplets to a low concentration that is unlikely to result in infection. Outdoor transmission is still possible, but studies of the origin of cases seem to suggest that it is roughly 100 times less likely that any given case will have resulted from outdoor transmission.

It is also the case that brief contact with a contagious person is far less likely to result in viral transmission than sustained close proximity. Taken together with the relative safety of being outdoors, this means that if you briefly pass close by an infected person on the trail, there is only a vanishingly small chance of you catching the virus from them and getting infected. Of course we still want to take precautions to mitigate small risks, but with reasonable modifications, we believe that trail running events can be one of the safest and most health-promoting things you can do during the pandemic.

Our staff has been looking toward expert guidance—including from health and labor departments at the State of Washington (via the guidance from the Governor’s office) and numerous email bulletins and web resources from the Centers for Disease Control—as we implement extensive safety protocols to eliminate unnecessary risks. The list of steps we are taking is long and growing in detail, so we won’t include it here, but the general areas we are emphasizing are physical distancing, PPE/masks/hygiene, sanitizing, screening, staffing for safety, communications & training.

You have an important role to play in facilitating a safe event, and we ask that you follow #RecreateResponsibly guidelines and adhere to the guidelines below to help us keep you and our broader community safe:

Maintain Physical Distancing

Avoid gathering around others, and keep at least a six-foot interpersonal distance from anyone not in your household whenever possible
Travel to and from the event only with people in your household. Normally we encourage carpooling, but this is not the time for it.
Plan ahead so that you don’t need to make any extra stops on your way to or from the event. This is to eliminate unnecessary contact with others.
Arrive at the event site no earlier than you need to in order to comfortably check in and prepare to start, and at most one hour before your start time. If you arrive with extra time, please stay in your car or take a walk away from the event area in order to facilitate distancing for yourself and others.
Depart the event site promptly after you finish and complete your post-exercise routine
Unless you are passing, please maintain at least a 20-foot distance when following other runners going a similar speed on the course. Announce yourself when you intend to pass someone else on the trail, wait for a relatively wide spot, and allow time for the person you are passing to step to one side of the trail.

Wear a Mask & Practice Good Hygiene

Wear a mask or face covering at the event, only taking it off when you are about to start or are eating or drinking. You may want to bring a small plastic bag for your mask, so that you can put it in an easily accessible pocket when you aren’t wearing it.
Wash your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds or use hand sanitizer frequently, plus immediately after contact with respiratory fluids or possibly contaminated objects, like portable toilet doors and other commonly-touched surfaces.
If you need to cough or sneeze please cover it with a tissue (which you should then throw away as soon as possible) or with your elbow.
Avoid touching your mouth, nose, and eyes.
When taking your bib number, drinks, snacks, or any other items, please use care to touch only the item(s) you are taking. Drinks and snacks will be served in individual portions only, and common water and snack containers are to be touched by staff only.

Stay Home if You’re Sick or Vulnerable

Do not attend the event if you have a temperature of 100.4F or greater, feel sick, or believe you may have recently been exposed to the COVID-19 virus
Do not attend the event if you are a member of a high-risk group or are in close contact with one or more people in a high-risk group (per CDC: 65+, immune compromised, having another health condition that exacerbates COVID-19)
If you begin to experience the flu-like symptoms of COVID-19 while you are at the event, please immediately notify a staff person (at a safe distance) and self-quarantine away from others until you are able to safely depart the event

We will ask you to affirmatively agree to abide by this code of conduct before you participate in the event. We also ask that we be allowed to contact you after the event if we discover that someone at the event was sick and have reason to believe you may have been exposed. If you become sick soon after attending the event, we would appreciate you letting us know, so that we can track potential risk to our staff and other participants.

Course Description

Note that the start and finish locations will be about 200-250 meters east of where they are shown on the map below. The course starts and finishes in the Lower Meadow next to Piper’s Creek. The route is mostly in the forest (85%) and has a mix of fast, wide trail (64%) and narrower rolling trail (36%), with some flatter sections and some moderate to steep sections.

The 5k course goes the length of the wide, Piper’s Creek Trail, climbing first gently, then more steeply to the head of the valley before turning around and going over half the distance back. The route then turns left up the South Ridge Trail, which climbs steeply then becomes a rolling traverse through some of the older forest in the park. Upon reaching the Clay Pit Trail, the course turns right down the hill, then descends to the meadow on the Hillside Trail and goes a few hundred meters to the finish.

The 10k course is two loops of the 5k course.

Climb
5K (3.1 miles), with 480 feet of elevation gain*
10K (6.2 miles), with 960 feet of elevation gain*

*Distances were measured using a measuring wheel, and climb was measured using a detailed contour map. The distance is most likely within 1% of actual, and the climb within 10%.

View a PDF of the course map here

Aid station
The aid station will be stationed at the start/finish, which is the halfway point for 10k runners.

The aid station offers water, electrolyte drink, gels, and one or two carbohydrate-rich or salty foods, such as fruity candy or chips.

Schedule

TUESDAY, July 6

3:30pm – Check-in and day-of-event registration opens
4:00pm – First start time
7:00pm – Last start time
8:30pm – Course closes

Directions & Parking

Drive to the junction of NW Carkeek Park Road, NW 114th Street, and the entrance road to Carkeek Park (adjacent to the Environmental Learning Center.) Park along the southwest side of either NW Carkeek Park Road or NW 114th Street, or along one of the other nearby roads if parking is full along those roads adjacent to the entrance road. Please take care not to block the gate or any driveways or lanes of traffic.

Walk down the entrance road past the locked gate until the road levels out and you see the grassy meadow on the left. The registration, start and finish will be set up in the east (near) end of the meadow.

Google Map to parking

Apparel

The Northwest Trail Runs apparel merchandise for 2021 featuring our “Run Every Trail” slogan is here! You can order our apparel when 1) registering and pick them up at the event, or 2) order at RunningBug Apparel and have them shipped. (Click to enlarge images)

$18.10 + tax – short sleeve tech shirts, in unisex, women’s cuts & youth

$22.70 + tax – long sleeve tech shirts, in unisex and women’s cut

$18.10 + tax – short sleeve cotton blend shirts, unisex; $27.20 + tax – cotton hoodie, unisex

Hot dogs, watermelon, & more!

Make sure to stick around after your race for hot dogs, veggie dogs, watermelon, and other yummy snacks!

Safety, Etiquette, Dogs

SAFETY
The trails will be open to other users during the event, including pedestrians with pets, and cyclists. Participants are responsible for their own safety while participating, and the organizers are neither qualified nor equipped to render medical care in the event of a serious injury. In case of an emergency, call 9-1-1. You are encouraged to bring a cell phone with you as a safety precaution, if you wish.

COVID-19 PRECAUTIONS
We have numerous safety measures that we will describe in more detail, but in brief, we ask that while you are at the event—except while you are actually running the course—you maintain at least a 6-foot distance from others not in your household and wear a mask or cloth face covering.

If you are comfortable running with a mask that you can pull into place quickly, then we welcome you to wear it over your nose and mouth when passing other people on the trails, although we recognize that the risks of momentarily passing someone without a mask are already minimal, and running with a mask may not work for everyone.

FOLLOWING AND PASSING ETIQUETTE
If you find yourself following other runners at a similar pace, please do so at a distance of at least 20 feet (6 meters). When passing, please announce your intent well in advance, in case the runner in front of you wishes to step to the side of the trail to maintain a comfortable distance. Where the trails are narrow, please let other participants pass you if they want to get by. It is a passing runner’s job to tell the person in front that they wish to pass.

HEADPHONES
If you’d like to listen to music while you’re on the course, please use headphones or earbuds, so that runners around you can’t hear it. Others may prefer a quieter event experience or may have different musical tastes. Runners playing music in the open air may be asked to leave the event.

Also, keep the volume low enough that you can hear someone talking to you in a normal voice, for example, another runner saying they would like to pass on your left.

DOGS
Our events are USATF certificated and under the USATF policies, dog are not allow on course.