I've taken my running off road

Well I've gone off road. Most of my running lately has been on trails. I have my first trail race coming up this Saturday. It is a 4.5K run at Rattlesnake Point.

I've got some Asics 2120 Trail Shoes. I ran my first 4.5K in them on Wednesday. My first kilometer in them was really strange. Every time my foot came down it felt like I was in a lumber truck, the vibration shaking my body. It took more than a couple of KM's to even get my stride. I was starting to wonder if these shoes were a mistake. Finally I got into my stride, and a more normal feeling was starting, the ache you in your feet you get from new shoes. My legs were getting pretty tired, but it felt normal. It was a hot night so I did just one loop of the trail.

While planning for my Saturday's run I was looking for my water bottle. I couldn't find it anywhere. I needed my hand-held for any kind of long run. The closest running shop that had one was about a 20 minute drive. I went out Friday night an bought an 'Ultimate Direction FastDraw Plus'. I know I will find my other hand-held now that I've bought this one.
Saturday, I decided to do a long run. I estimated a 16K trail run. I knew it would be hard, much harder than 16K on the road. I was up at 6:30am and at I arrived at the trail head about 7:45. I started out running, I had my hand-held, along with a plastic bottle to drop a couple of KM's in before a 6K loop. I brought a ClifBar and a pack of ClifShot Bloks for fuel. I bought some deer fly patches, there are a couple of places that they are really bad.

Within the first 1/2KM I seen 3 deer. They watched me for about 10 seconds and bounded into the woods. The first 2K was on the main loop #2 trail and then I went onto a 6K loop #1 trail. The first half of this trail was mainly open sky on the top of a hill. It was already pretty hot.

Eventually the trail was under the canopy of trees and it was a lot cooler. There were a few more deer along this trail. It was a busy day at Short hills Provincial Park with bikers, hikers, other runners and lots of fresh horse manure.

I finished this loop and still felt pretty good. I was back on the main loop for about another 3/4K and went onto the #4 trail which is a loop, but 1/2 way through the #4, the #5 trail connects to it. I ran these two trails. A lot more deer, but no turkeys on Saturday. The other day I seen about 5 wild turkeys, and yes turkeys can fly.

I finshed these two trails and came back out onto the #2, but instead of finishing the loop I went onto the #6. This turned out to be the of the most beautiful of the trails. It was on this trail about 2 1/4 hours in, probably about 15K in that I ran out of juice. I ran a little and walked a lot. The last 1/2K stretch, I have nicknamed this stretch "The Four Humps", four good size hills. On this day I walked the humps.

It took me 2 1/2 hours to run 16K, I normally would run at least 20K on an run. I really love the trails.