Saturday was my first trail run of the year and couldn’t have picked a better day. Sunny - low wind - 50’s - air felt fresh and clean - low humidity! It was one of those wow days. I was looking forward to see how the body would respond to the subtleties of the trail and to see if I could complete a workout without being taken down by the evil root monster. Since I have a trail race in two weeks it probably would be a good idea to get in some mileage on the dirt.

trailhead

The Erwin Park trail is an 8 mile single track loop that zigzags through trees as well as open fields. It has a good little mix throughout the rolling miles. After the initial 100 yards, the trail heads into the tree where you trot around, over, and in-between various small and mid-sized trees.

more tight singletrack

I was somewhat reserved in my stride for most of the miles because this is the same trail I injured myself at last fall due to a root monster so I tried to pay extra attention to lift up those darn feet. I normally don’t lift my feet up very high when I run, so my running style (or lack thereof) can definitely be exposed out on the trail.

With the above being said, I was still really enjoying the run and trying to stay as aerobic as possible. The weather conditions were constantly teasing me to push a little harder but I used my heart rate monitor to throttle the effort and cap around 150 bpm.

open field section with mountain biker

There were a few hikers as well as mountain bikers enjoying the amazing weather. It wasn’t too busy, just enough to know that you weren’t completely alone. I was feeling great after the first loop and quickly stopped at the car to refill my bottle with HEED and began my last loop. I finished loop one in 1 hr 13 minutes.

an interesting scene

some local wildlife

At times during the second loop I could feel a bit of fatigue setting in so if I needed to settle the heart rate, I would walk for 30 seconds or so and drink some fluids. I also tried to remind myself to focus on form as the trail tried to chip away at it. I think I held it together fairly well.

After another 1 hr and 7 minutes, I had completed another loop. I knocked off six minutes with an avg heart rate 5 bpm greater than the first loop. As a big bonus, no root monsters were seen!

It was a great day and a great run. I look forward to trying to break the 1 hour mark for a loop this year. We will see…

Happy Training!

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