Up a Creek

My Thanksgiving morning run was a lesson in going with the flow. I had researched and scouted out the rec area where I wanted to run and visually confirmed that it had a converted rail trail. However, the park has many trails: bike, horse, multi-use. I checked the map, thought I had found the way to the cinder trail, and took off. Every road I chose had a gate up (which I ultimately figured out that I could bypass) and every trail seemed to lead to other trails, none of which were the one I wanted.

I ended up cobbling together a run with lots of backtracking, and I never ended up on the train trail that I wanted. The most promising trail ended when it was cut off by a wide creek, and I decided that I did not want to run in wet, cold shoes for the remainder of the outing. I did, however, make lemonade out of lemons when I dead-ended into a bike area called "Bump and Dump," which was a series of four foot high hills with flat tops for riding. That's one way to get in some crazy hill work.

After I finished I did some investigating in the car and discovered that the train trail is accessible from the road in a totally different area (although you can't park there). Today I will see if I can actually make it there.