trails

I'm bored, the movie I rented wasn't that good (good book, bad and sulky movie) and so I found myself googling local parks for trails for trail runs this summer.

None of them seem to have mileage on them. Very odd.

It might be a reason to get a stop watch.

If I know the time I'm running, I don't have to worry about the distance!

That might be my next "reward," after I run 10 miles straight in two weeks from tomorrow. 10 miles is my "wow" distance. It seems like forever (even now, when I'm scheduled to run 8 miles tomorrow). And from what I've read, it seems to be a good endurance maintenance distance, a distance I plan on running on Sundays even after the half-marathon has come and gone. 10 miles should take me around two hours; yet now, even with the wow factor, it seems doable.

But if 7 miles seemed like agony on the treadmill (which I will be revisiting again tomorrow, sadly), I can only imagine what 10 miles indoors or even 10 miles on neighborhood roads feels like.

Don't get me wrong, I like running in neighborhoods. I'm very fond of my 2 mile hill workout to the water tower. (One mile up the hill to the water tower, one mile back down). But passing the same cookie-cutter houses, the same neighbors, the same mini-vans and sedan cars?

No, 10 miles calls for more. It calls for excitement, for choosing a better place to run, for loosing yourself in nature. For running on trails that may not be marked by mile markers; for creating your own trails (so to speak).

I think I just made a case for a new watch in two weeks!

And I've found a new goal, although it's not as defined as finishing this half-marathon race. It's to find each trail that's within a 20 minute drive and run it this summer. I know, driving to run seems counter-intuitive. But I live in what feels like small town U.S.A. Anyway, when I lived in D.C., I knew of folks that took the metro to the mall, ahemm, The Mall, to run.

So how is driving to a trail any different?