I thought I loved running (and I do) but I have found something even better: running through God's Country (that's Minnesota for anyone reading from Wisconsin) on the trails and fallen leaves of the Minnesota River Bottoms.
Incredible scenery, smells, sounds. Downed trees, running streams, honking geese, chattering eagles, and the ever-present and sometimes startled squirrels that seem shocked that they were caught unaware 2 feet off the trail with their noses down by a 200 pound running man. How does that happen?!
And pushing my body to handle the shifting sand, broken ground, hills up and hills down, leaves, branches, roots and rocks. Never a dull moment. No repetition. No fumes, horns, broken bottles on the side of the road.
There is also no abundance of speed on trail running - at least not for me, at least not yet. My first mile today was 13+ minutes (I've been known to run a road mile in 8-1/2). But the body is working muscles that are rarely twitched on a long race. Even the abs get called to duty every few minutes on a rocky, downhill slide-shuffle. My hams, which seem to show up solely in a supporting role for the quads on a road run, were crying like little girls today. Even my lungs, despite the slow pace, were reminded what it meant to walk a block back when I carried 88 pounds more and cried like a girl when Minda coerced me into walking around the block!
All this extra work is intentional - I'm less than 3 weeks away from the second half-marathon of my life, and I know that trail-running is good for building speed, strength and endurance for road races.
But somewhere along the trail, perhaps as I simultaneously spun a switchback and ducked under a low-hanging oak branch as big around as I was two-years ago, I fell in love.
I think this affair may last longer than the one with the doughnuts!
Beautiful!
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