Trail Run

Yup. Still preparing for this.  It's less than 2 weeks away now.  A time to be scared.  Truly scared.  In my attempts to get ready for this race, I hit a local state park to get a trail run in.  I figure running on a trail will help me adjust to the trail run part of the race.

I headed to Gifford Pinchot State Park, named after the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania.  It's about a half hour away from the house, but it is the closest place I could think of to run. 

I parked the car and realized just how pretty Pinchot is.  There are lots of stuff to do there and it's just a really nice park.

 

I decided to head to the trails to the left of the park area because it had more rest areas.  Not knowing how far anything was from anything else by looking at the map, I thought random rest areas would come in handy, especially if I had to hit the bathroom.  Heading right would have been fun too since there was a scenic overlook, but no bathrooms.  Priorities.  I chose to take the Lakeside Trail.  I figured this would keep me from getting too lost.  LOL!

The trail was so pretty.  It was a hot day, somewhere around 80 degrees and honestly, really humid.  I was a tad bit nervous about running because it was so hot.  Hate running in the heat.  Bah!  But it was pretty...

I had no idea where I was going in general, but I just kept wandering through the paths and stuck to the lake.  I figured that would keep me from getting too lost.  LOL!  At one point, I had several path options and I chose the one that was uphill.  And then, just feet into it, there were rocks.

These rocks were between 1/4 and 1/2 mile long, but I welcomed them!  I realized this path was great for trying to get ready for the race.  And it was kinda neat to run over the rocks without falling.  Twisted my ankles a tad, nothing serious though.  And when I got to the turn around point I had to take a self-portrait.

On the way back down the trail, there is one section that is just barely a path.  I'm glad it was part of a larger path because if that were the whole thing, I sure as heck wouldn't have found my way back!

And I was running so fast, my camera couldn't keep up!  Mwhahahahaha!

Though, I admit.  At one point I did get a tad bit lost.  I'm not sure what happened.  I thought I remembered all the turns I made, but apparently not.  I did find this really pretty park bench.

Then I found the path again and set off to the parking lot.  It was still hot and I was sweating.  Ugh.  But, it was shady, which kept a lot of the sun off me.  Not only did it keep me from having the sun beat down and make me hotter, but it kept the sun off me so I didn't worry about burning (don't worry, I had SPF 110 on).

I got back to the picnic area alive.  Yea!  My Garmin said about 2.25 miles at 37 minutes.  :-(  But, I also turned on the pedometer on my Nano, which said I got 2.5 miles.  I'm going with the Nano on distance because a couple times the Garmin stopped measuring distance due to the tree cover.  But, the Nano didn't have that problem.

So, it was a good run.  It was a nice change of pace.  And next Saturday, I'm going back again.  It's a nice change of pace from running on sidewalks without shade.