Lost in the Woods

The title of this post is a literal one.   We got lost in the woods today.   We run in a large natural park that abuts our neighborhood and over the past four years we’ve put in a lot of time running, walking and biking in the park.    What we’ve done though is almost exclusively on the “bike and bridle” trails which are graveled, groomed and large enough for the park vehicles to travel on.

Today, we branched out to do some single track trails.   We’ve been thinking about doing the marathon held in the park by the running group that got me started running for a few years now but it just hasn’t worked out.   This year we signed up and now we’re training up for this race, which is going to be different for us.

The part that will be nice is it’s our “home course” if you will.   We’ve run marathon distances in the park before as we’ve trained for other races.   What we haven’t done is run a lot of the areas we’ll be running for the marathon though.   There’s a particular section of trails I nicknamed “The Hateful Route” back before I’d run my first 5K.   It’s full of steep hills and switchbacks.    For the marathon, we’ll be running The Hateful Route not once, but twice as it’s the final stretch before the turnaround.

There are also over six miles of single track trails.   We decided to try them out today as well as check out the start/finish line.    It was about five miles of running to get to the starting point.  We then went to the first of three trail offshoots.   These narrow trails turned out to be beautiful.   They ran by streams some of the time and the canopy of forest was enchanting.  But they were a test of our ability to remain upright due to roots, rocks and muddy areas from the recent rainfall.    If you didn’t look down and focus on where your feet were going next, you could get in trouble easily.

We came out of the first side trail and I got us to the second side trail with only a small hitch.    About two miles later we exited the second trail and were thinking about getting home.   We realized we were near a parking lot and decided it was worth the detour to see if there was water there.   We passed a biker who confirmed our water thoughts and a short while later things were looking better on the running front from a body aches perspective.

This running on single track trails is far different on the muscles needed for running.   We were both sore and tired.   I took us to the third and final trail entrance and about a mile or so later we knew we were in the wrong place.   The problem was, what place were we in?   The maps showed two branches for the trail name we had been running on.   I didn’t realize there was more than one option because the marathon trail map only showed the trails we’d be running, not the other ones near them.

So it wasn’t a complete disaster, but we ended up doing several miles of additional trail running.   We were also close to fifteen miles into the run and our legs were so tired we both stumbled multiple times.    We emerged finally, coming out near the far entrance to The Hateful Route.   I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see The Hateful Route before.  

Four miles later we got home.   I’m glad we ran the small trails today.   I think we’re going to need to do it again before the race.    I’m a little worried how sore I’m going to be in the morning though.

The Big Boy Update:  My son got his first belt in Tae Kwon Do last night.  He was in a large room without a single student he knew from his class.   He was also the smallest child in the room.   He stood there, listened to the master and followed all the moves.   He got his high white belt before any of the others at his level.    He was very excited when the master called him up to get his belt first.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   This morning my daughter came down to our room and said, “we forgot to put the patch on my eye last night.”   I told her that it was probably okay.    She said, “it’s okay, I was being saftely.”