New Trails, new friends

I wanted a 20 mile run today and also wanted to run some parts of the Burning River course that I was not familiar with. I arranged to meet Andy and Bolanz road and also posted a note on the VR bulletin board. Kurt, JP, Patti, and Don joined Andy and I on a beautiful morning.

We started by traveling the BR course backwards to Pine Hollow. We passed a goat farm on the way and I chuckled at the babies and mother goats scampering about. Several parts of the trail were muddy and Andy abandoned all hope of keeping dry feet very early in the day. Instead of calling our muddy sections to the group, we would call out dry sections. There were a lot fewer of them... We also called out fallen trees for Kurt so that he would not trip! Ask him sometime for the story.

We made a couple of wrong turns but recovered before too much time was lost. Before we knew it we were at Pine Hollow. We returned the same way and after we waited for Kurt to retreive his shoe from the mud, we arrived back at the cars for fluids and food. We decided to go to the covered bridge and travel the Perkins/Riding Run bridle trails. JP warned us that it was very muddy there earlier in the week and we discussed options for alternate routes. We started up the climb from the valley and it was not too bad. Andy and Don turned back for a 15 mile day while JP, Patti and I continued on.

These trails were pretty isolated and very scenic. JP said that the fall colors are very vivid and that the woods are even nicer with a fresh covering of snow in the winter. I need to get back here again to experience the other seasons.

We arrived at the covered bridge again and none of us really wanted to run along Ira road per the original plan so we instead headed back into the woods towards Oak Hill trail and Furnace run. These were a couple of short loops but they contained some steep sections of trail. A few loops here would make for a good hill workout.

Back to Bolanz road for a total of 20 miles and 4 hours 15 minutes of running. Not a fast day but I am feeling good and felt like I could have gone farther. I hope to follow up with 10 miles in the morning to complete a good week. Thanks to JP, Patti, Andy, Don, and Kurt for the company. JP, lets get a night run planned soon!

Denise and I walked the dogs in the park this afternoon and a red fox crossed the bike path in front of us. Pretty cool..