Time to find a trail race?
Alternate title: I knew there was a practical reason I bought black running shoes.
Have you ever noticed how google maps show trails along with roads?
Oh, I’ve noticed. Sometimes, this has done me really good, like when I am traveling and looking for someplace to run. I put in the address to google maps and pan around until I find a place that I want to research further to run.
Sometimes this does not do me so good. Like today. The “trail” I saw turned out to not really be so much of a trail, and required running through grass as tall as me, crossing a stream, running in the mud, through poison ivy (“leaves of three, let it be,” right, Mom?), past branches with thorns on them, through swarms of mosquitoes… you get the idea.
Yeah, I cannot say it did me good. But I can say it was awesome and exhilarating! Ha ha.
Curiosity (and boredom) has really got the best of me lately. We are limited to one running car at home, and when I choose to run after work, it is not practical for me to take the car somewhere – Steven needs it to drop off his FakeMeats.com packages at the post office. So lately I have been on multiple quests to see how many different running routes I can find that start at my house. Most of the routes so far have included some running on grass, groomed trails and road, but today’s route was very off the beaten path. In fact, I may have been trespassing… I hope not!
So awhile ago I noticed this “trail” on google maps that goes off of the trail near my home. I decided to hop on it and see how far I got. Not very far. I hit a stream right away.
“I know there’s got to be a way to cross this stream!” I thought. And I found one. Yay for fallen trees covered in thorny branches. And beaver dams!
After traipsing through the woods, I found myself in more of an open prairie and was able to run at a normal pace again.
Hola, tortuga amigo!
Then I hit up some streets and planned on taking a normal loop home. But damn, I enjoyed that off-roading so much I decided to needed to follow the trail marker flags for part of a new trail going up near our home (I blame Steven for pointing these flags out to me the other day!).
This was all fun and games, even when I inadvertently ran through mud and water that seeped through my shoes in to my socks. Oh well! (my “I love wet socks!” face:)
But then it happened again. Another stream. In fact, the same damn one, just at a different point! (my “what the what?!” face:)
This one was more difficult to figure out. It involved crawling through a tree cave,
climbing over another beaver dam (thanks, beavers!),
navigating some rocks,
and scaling a mud wall. Fun times! After that it was more run in the prairie. I am surprised I did not get muddier or more cut up! I wonder how many unseen mosquito bites I have though.
So who wants to come do a crazy run with me?
As you can see from the map, it’s not even 20% crazy!
But I am 100% crazy. You have been warned.
Themocracy
You are so hardcore!
This looks SO fun! I should pull out my muddy shoes and join you!
Yes!
Whoa! I’m impressed that you didn’t let the stream (or the weeds or the other stuff) deter you! Can I admire your craziness from over here, though? 😛
That does sound off the beaten path. More like an obstacle course!
My favorite part was “Hola, tortuga amigo!”
Also, I had forgotten about FakeMeats.com!
It seems a few people forgot! I need to talk about it more 🙂
You are crazy, amiga! And I didn’t realize you guys had your own web store – how cool is that?!
Thanks! There is a lot of cool stuff on there. Do you have all the fake jerkies in Belgium?
You’ll just be trudging through those streams in no time. 🙂 Honestly, though, not sure I would have been that adventurous on my own not knowing exactly where all those were going! Looks like fun though.
I was thinking about you when I stepped in that giant mud/swamp thing and it did not bother me 🙂
That looks like a crazy good time. Haha. Once my tri is done, I’ll have to do some trail running since I won’t really be training for much over the summer (until I begin half marathon training for my late August race).
The whole time I was reading this I kept thinking you so cray cray. Glad you were able to admit it! : ) It does look like fun though! Except for the poison ivy part.
I love it! I’m getting a little bored with my usual running routes that start at my front door. My options are: 1) the paved, flat, long trail that I run on ALL the time, 2) residential neighborhoods, 3) forest preserve where at least a couple people have been murdered [over the past two decades … so the odds are in my favor, I’m just nervous] and 4) other forest preserve that requires running on the side of a busy-ish road [no sidewalk] to get to, but no history of murder.
I’m trying to find some dogs to “borrow” to check out the “scary” forest preserve. My sis-in-law said I could borrow one of their dogs (the younger one), and my other friend works at an animal hospital and is going to see if I can walk/run any of the dogs up for adoption.
Also I really want to do a REAL trail race someday. I’ve found a few but they are either far (an hour or more drive) or don’t fit my schedule. Plus I’m already signed up for too many races this year …
I hope you do find some dogs to “borrow” (lol) so you can do some exploring. There are lots of great trails up here if you ever want to come up on a weekend, but you have all those races. And that does not help for weeknight runs!