Trail Running

Have been checking out mapmyrun over the past few evenings and was amazed to find a map of my area along with all the fire trails marked as well. If you haven't checked this out it's really cool and the maps are very accurate and detailed.

I was inspired today to check out a different route *gasp* and do a loop using a couple of fire trails for my long run. I was a little disappointed to find that it would only be 12 ks, but in hindsight this was a good thing. I had only ever run and walked parts of this route before and I knew that it would be pretty steep in parts. The boys and I had walked one section last year and we agreed that it was too steep even for our 4WD.

It was certainly real trail running: uneven terrain, rocks, long grass, jumping and climbing over fallen trees, jumping over fallen tree branches, spider webs and clouds of insects that stuck to my sweaty legs but also two red-tailed black cockatoos, fantastic views (I even saw the ocean) and some magnificent trees. I nearly took the wrong fork at one stage as the sign post had fallen on the ground and I almost missed the trail that went straight up into the bush.

There was quite a bit of downhill running too but at times it was so steep that only a sideways crab walk would do and I had to move off the track a few times in order to get some traction. I felt sure that I would get home with skinned knees but I managed to stay upright.

It definitetly wasn't about time today. The first 9.5 ks took 91 minutes (the total time was about an hour and 49 minutes) which gives some of indication of the difficult terrain. I admit that I had to stop and admire the view a few times too and Iwas certainly puffing even whilst walking the steep sections.

It was great fun overall and I might try interspersing this type of long run with the more conventional dirt road route in future.

Hope all the Six Foot Track runners had a good day today and enjoyed themselves. Am looking forward to reading those reports.