I found some new trail this week. For the last year I've been running a brand new paved trail I can access directly out my front door, but it runs parallel to a major highway and the traffic and road noise are constant.
This other trail likewise follows a road, but it is definitely the road less travelled. I saw a total of four cars in four miles. But that's not what made it great.
The trail roughly follows the western shore of a very large lake. All of it is wooded, rolling and beautiful. The hills are there, but just enough gentle grade to give you a challenge without making you hate your run.
The real gem for me was that it leads into two connected nature preserves. I ran through some of the last remaining old growth maples, oaks, and white pines left in the state. The preserves are laced by a network of trails, and so I turned off and made my way.
I turned off down a two-track and ran through the forest. I ran through the entire preserve. When I hit the gravel road on the other side I took a right until I reached a meadow of mown hay. There I followed a trail back into the forest.
It was amazing. The quiet dark forest. The near silent impact of my feet on loam and forest duff. At one point my ankle grazed a strand of barbed wire, rusted and menacing, and I relished the element of danger, the untamed nature of this place.
Soon I lost my way. It was overcast, and the forest all looked the same. I just kept running, faster and faster, taking every west and north turn, despite the fact that every trail ran in an arc. But soon enough I was back at the gravel trail I had started on, once again weaving through giant rolls of hay. Four deer watched me cautiously from a hundred yards away.
I can guarantee you a bear has pooped in these woods. There's a lot of coyotes here. Wolf pups were collared a few miles away a few years back. It is magical country, full of life, and nothing brings it to life like being out of breath, my legs numb from the run, my heart pounding and free.
It's good to be a runner, and it's good to find new trail.
