So what’s the deal with trail running? (please read this backblast in my terrible Jerry Seinfeld voice)
We start at Miles Godwin High School. Nice parking lot. Sidewalks. Roads. Civilization. And the first thing we do is leave all of it.
Nobody has ever looked at a perfectly paved road and said, “You know what this needs? More roots.”
You get into the trail and suddenly every step is a game show.
“Is that a root? Is it a stick? Is it a snake? Find out in three-tenths of a second!”
And why are roots always exactly where your foot wants to land? The entire forest floor is a giant practical joke.
Then you’ve got the creek. We crossed that creek so many times I started wondering if the creek was following us.
“Didn’t we just cross you?”
“Yep.”
“And now we’re crossing you again?”
“That’s right.”
The wooden bridges don’t help. Nobody trusts a wooden bridge in the woods. Every guy who steps on one does the exact same thing. He slows down and looks at it like he’s evaluating a used car.
“Looks okay…”
creeeak
“Maybe not.”
Then there’s the cobweb situation. The first guy on the route isn’t a runner. He’s a human windshield. Thanks Lighthouse!
Every spider in the county spent all night constructing a beautiful web and we’re charging through like a parade float.
And the guy behind him? Completely fine. That’s the injustice of trail running. One guy eats the web, the next ten get a clean path.
At some point we ended up in Stone Run. How do you know you’re in Stone Run?
Because somebody always says, “Are we in Stone Run?”
And three different guys answer with three different levels of confidence.
“I think so.”
“Pretty sure.”
“No idea.”
That’s not navigation. That’s a focus group.
Eventually we found our way back through Trellis Crossing and returned to the school, looking like a group of men who had escaped from somewhere.
You know you’ve had a good trail run when you get back to the parking lot and think, ‘Look at this place… roads, signs, pavement. We’ve really come a long way as a society.”
Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.
