Trail Hopping

I woke up this morning with both ankles so sore limping was difficult. I twisted them both many times during my hike yesterday and overnight they tightened. But I knew from twisting my ankle on loose gravel earlier in the week that the pain would go away once I started walking around on it (or running in this case).

It was another cold, drizzly morning and I wanted to do an easy trail run today so I decided to drive down to the Bent Creek Area, a collection of trails and other recreation areas in the the Pisgah National Forest south of Asheville. But after getting lost several times I got sick of driving and headed back toward Black Mountain.

The woman I am staying with said there are trails at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa (the next town West of Black Mountain) so I decided to check them out. Unfortunately they were very, very short trails (quarter of a mile or so). I ran around the small campus a bit and it was pretty, but it got tiresome quickly. 

At this point I was really frustrated and was going to quit after only three miles of running. I just wanted to find a flat road and go,  unencumbered by steep, unrunnable inclines and curvy, shoulderless roads. My legs were tired, my ankles sore, my anxiety level high.  I wanted a nice run along the beach. But this trip is about finding a different perspective and challenging rigid ways of thinking.


During the past 17 years, nearly every run has kept pace along a continuous path without barriers or interruptions -- a training run designed to mimic race conditions. Naturally, someone who refuses to deviate from these conditions would find the hills, streams and other obstructions typical of trail running quite aggravating. One of my predetermined goals is to become comfortable, and eventually enthusiastic about trail running since I do truly enjoy running in nature. It's merely a matter of redefining the term "running" in my own head. 


But there is another concept of running that didn't occur to me before today: one longer run concatenated from two or more shorter runs in different locations. A run like this would break the contiguous pattern I've been following all of my running life.


I remembered passing a sign for the Black Mountain Recreation Area on the outskirts of town so instead of going home I decided to trail hop and seek out another running venue. The recreation area is just a small town park with a baseball field, like one you would find in every town in America, but this one also has two small trails. 

The first trail is paved and a half mile long but if you keep going when it ends, there is a gravel road that leads to a wooded area that serves as some sort of retreat for Montreat College. It has a lookout tower and a couple picnic tables, but also nice wood chip running trails weaving around it. This area isn't open to the public but it was a rainy Sunday morning and no one was around ... 


Before finishing a total of six miles between the two places I twisted my ankle yet again, this time badly enough to warrant vocal obscenities and some limping. It turned into a nice Sunday morning run though and I look forward to more trail hopping (and perhaps some trail shoe shopping).