Those Fun Local Trails

Watching the ESPN track and field from Saturday: Galen Rupp, gunning for the American record in the two mile run on the Arkansas indoor track, pushing the last mile on his own with his coach Alberto Salazar shouting splits out to him, ran a hard last 200 meters, with slobber hanging out of his mouth, to do it: 8:09.72, breaking Bernard Lagat's American record by a quarter second. Anything like that is inspiring for another runner to watch, even for a runner like me who runs nowhere near tracks or even roads most of the time.

At times in my life I did all my running on roads, and to me that feels like work, like a chore, but running trails is better, and more different a trail is from a road, the better it gets. The trails I'm running now are inspiring me. One park, Harriman, is very rocky and technical and very scenic, the other, Ramapo Reservation, is still rocky and technical, but more woodsy and smoother in places. Both of these parks are local and they keep drawing me back out to them, to explore farther, and to see what's out there.

I was taking a short break at the turn-around of a shorter run the other day, and I was wondering what was it about that terrain that was inspiring me so much. First, there's the technical footing, which after a lot of experience can become automatic but at the same time focusing and occupying a part of your mind, flowing over the landscape, but leaving a part of your mind to wander creatively, one that is normally blocked out by front-burner issues. Second, the land out there is so busy with rock formations, water features, trees and jumbled topography that you could really get lost out there. Sweeping open featureless hillsides have their place at times, but I'll take a densely interesting forest most days. This is probably why I will always love the northeast US so much; the terrain is just plain more interesting to me than what I've seen elsewhere.

Yesterday I was out in Ramapo Reservation on an hourish run, trying out lighter shoes again. Recently I've been doing all my trail runs in sturdy Treksta trail running shoes, which are so comfortable and matched to technical terrain that they have enabled me to adjust to the terrain. Before that my feet were always sore, running alternatively in Saucony Peregrines and Montrail mountain masochists, both excellent trail shoes, with the former being a very light racing shoes, and the latter rugged but but still light good all-arounders for trails. So yesterday I wore the Peregrines to see how my feet (and calves) would fare, and everything was ok. I plan to incorporate these lighter shoes into more runs as the year goes on so that I can strengthen my feet and race in them later.

With training going well so far this year, I will settle into my modest volume of between 6 and 7 hours of running per week (adding more cross training in the form of hiking and biking as the weather warms), and I will continue to increase the length of my long runs, as laid out in my 2012 training plan. But as I settle into my volume and running pattern, I will have plenty of room to improve in terms of slowly increasing the intensity of my runs, later doing specific speed runs and big hill workouts: running up and down a mountain to gain a mile of climb over 20 or so miles. I also have some weight to lose (about 180 now), which is fine because right now I'm carrying the weight ok, and when it comes off, hopefully down into the low 160s, I will not only be faster because I'm carrying less weight, I will have a stronger heart and lungs for having carried more weight. At least that's my positive spin on it!

Cheers.