I went to the main office first and that was neat. I guess the place used to be a rich guy's house. It was like an old castle. There was a lot of surrounding land.
I couldn't run at that lot, since it closed at 4 PM. Therefore, I used the bathroom and headed to the Sawmill Lot. That was a good place to start. I had no real plans and had to look at a map. There are a lot of trails there, but the place didn't seem too big, so I wasn't concerned about getting lost.It was a bit chilly, but overall pretty nice for December. I went with a lightweight long sleeve shirt and fleece vest over it. I wore tights and only had a glove on my handheld bottle hand. I got chilled a bit later, so I added my headband.
After studying the map, I decided to take the route with the most elevation gain. That was actually a mistake, as it was steeper than I expected. My breathing wasn't under control yet, so I had to hike some. I didn't anticipate anything more than a moderate climb here. I was surprised.
I hike a lot of this early singletrack in the first mile. Then, I stopped and took pictures at a rock outcrop. I was on my way along one of the main trails. This trail sucked. It was mostly just a wide woods road with some stones and a gradual incline. I found it very boring.
I even ended up hiking some of the easier sections. I just didn't enjoy the running terrain. I also ate a decent lunch and didn't feel all that great. Plus, I was still a bit beat from yesterday's challenging effort.
Of course with it being a wide and smooth woods road, I knew I'd be able to run a lot of it. I was thrilled when I finally managed to find a fun singletrack section. That didn't last long though. I was then on another woods road. I guess there were a lot of these throughout this guy's estate. It was no fun.
I hiked some more, but continued on. I looked everywhere for singletrack. Finally, I at least found some doubletrack. Even this was easy running though. At least it was downhill. I found it boring. I guess this could be a nice place to begin trail running at, but it wasn't a challenge for me at all.
I took out my map a few times, to confirm where I was. One of the more fun sections was a wet downhill. It had been blocked off by trees. As I got to the bottom, I saw why. It led to nowhere.
I had to bushwack briefly to get back to the trail. I then came out to a pond. The soggy ground before that was kind of fun. Then, I climbed some more singletrack. I ran it for a bit, but it got challenging for my tired body.
Shortly after that, I arrived back at the main office. I checked a map and was going to climb some to get back to the Sawmill Lot. However, I was kind of beat, so I decided to just take this paved road.At least this was downhill. I then was going to stay on that road because another road said it was closed. However, I saw a singletrack below that road. I hopped on that and it was fun. It was along a creek and one of the best sections of the run. Finally some singletrack. This then led back to the parking lot.
Since I was a little over 4 miles. I decided to continue out along the creek. I was able to add some more climbing too. I was breathing heavy going uphill. I went back down and finished up near my car. I was thrilled to be done.
I need more singletrack. This was one of my least favorite runs ever. At least it is done and I've tried something new. I doubt I'll ever be back.
Tomorrow, I'm not sure if I'll run. I have to work and also hope to watch some of the XC Nationals at Lehigh. A rest day wouldn't be a bad thing anyway. I definitely hope to run on Sunday and hopefully for a long time.
5 miles - 1:00:56 (12:11 pace) 1099 feet of elevation gain
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