Again, I didn't know what kind of crowd to expect. Dorf was the only one of the regular trail runners there. He grew up down the street, so he knows the trail better than me. I let him lead, as we started from Dodson Street Park.It was very hot and humid. This trail always seems to be that way. It can be brutal. I don't know if the heat gets trapped or what. I wore shorts and a short sleeve shirt. I was soaked by the end.
Lisa showed up again, as did Susan, from the BCR. I didn't know the other two women and I actually forgot their names. I'm terrible with names and I'm surprised that these are the first names that I forgot all week. I was glad to see some different faces.
Without the speedy regulars, I knew this would be much more of a fun run. We started at Dodson Street, on the top of the hill. That meant going downhill to start. The plan was to run the yellow and red loops. I figured that those would be about 6 miles in total.
I pointed out a sign for the Dodson Street Park as we made our way down. It was funny because this sign wouldn't help later on. We cruised around downhill. I tried to kind of stay in the middle of the group.
We stopped at the junction of the red and yellow trails. These breaks were good to keep everyone relatively together. We also stopped near the orange trail, to make sure no one took that path. Someone randomly left a birdcage at one spot. That was interesting.We continued on. Some of this early section was rocky. I thought there were a lot more rocks on this trail than we actually encountered. Maybe that was because I took a different section (possibly the blue trail) the other time.
Going downhill and bouncing over the rocks was fun. When we got to the road crossing at the bottom of the trail, we stopped again. I didn't mind the stopping, except that my shirt was soaked and starting again was uncomfortable.
I had talked with one of the new women for a bit on the way down, but she dropped behind as we climbed. This next mile or so was a climb back to the top. Dorf took off and I followed him. I then stopped for a couple photos and fell back. I followed Lisa for most of the rest of the run. We chatted a lot. It was fun.
The climb wasn't too hard for me, but it did take its toll on some of the others. We waited again at the road crossing at the top of the trail. Now, we were on relatively flat parts of the trail. I followed Lisa some more. We talked about marathons and stuff like that.
Finally, we stopped again at the junction of the yellow loop. We were nearly done with the run. I figured that the hard part was over. However, even with the sign back to the park, we somehow missed the quickest way back. I took us down one path, but then decided to backtrack.
We went another route, but it still wasn't the same way that we came down. Dorf led the way down this part anyway and we followed him. It might've taken a little longer, but eventually we found the way back to the park. That was good because it was nearly dark. It was a fun adventure.
I'm loving that all these new people are coming out to the runs. That is especially surprising, since I didn't open this up to everyone. It has simply been friends and friends of friends. I'm happy with the turnout. The runs aren't
huge, but they are perfect for what I can handle. If they got too big, I would have to mark courses and do other stuff to keep them more organize. I'm very happy that a lot of first time runners are coming out. I like for people to explore new trails.
Tomorrow is another day of trail running. This one will be at South Mountain on Lehigh's campus. I'm going to use the route from Dave Decker's Loopy Run last year. I know it well. I'm hoping a lot of the course is still marked. I'm planning on heading there tomorrow afternoon to run it on my own anyway and mark it as needed. That should be fun. It is a place that is easy to get lost at. Running the loop twice tomorrow should be a good workout. I might even add a nighttime second loop.
5.54 miles - 1:13:15 (13:14 pace)
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