the Way of the Turtle

5 Mile Snowshoe Run at Black Creek Park
Thursday, January 3, 2008

Black Creek Park official site
Black Creek Park trail map (PDF)

I almost always find Black Creek Park to be a tough place to run. It can also be a very busy park with a lot of folks out on the trails, depending on when you go there. But it has the advantages of being very pretty and fairly close to Ann's house, and I knew I needed some time on some more challenging terrain to get ready for this weekend's snowshoe races... so Black Creek was were I ended up this afternoon.

One plus to being there on a weekday afternoon - not a lot of other people were there. Other than at the sledding hill, I saw one other person the entire time I was out on the trails!

I started out on the relatively easy Ridge Trail (wide and mostly downhill!) for my warm up... moe snow than over at the canal path yesterday, but I had to work to avoid the more recent XC ski tracks (I try to avoid running on them when I can... unfortunately, many XC skiers don't seem to get the idea of staying to one side of the path when possible.) As I expected, there was a lot of churn from all the walkers who'd been out on the trail. That's a little easier to deal with on snowshoes than when running, but it still makes the going a bit tougher. After a while I came to the new side trail through the woods and headed off down that... the snow cover was a bit thinner under the trees, but it was still easier going since fewer people had been down that way.

Eventually I rejoined the Ridge Trail and came out at the barn. I had originally planned to just loop the pond, but the sun was warm and the snow was unbroken, luring me into running the perimeter of much of the field. I was briefly tempted to take the Creek Trail through the woods and around the rest of the park perimeter, but thought better of it, since that's the longest trail in the park and I had no way of knowing if the bridge was still out or not (and didn't feel like wading an icy stream today!) So instead I headed back the way I'd come, and then headed off on what I used to know as the Hardwood Swamp Trail (now called the Wetlands Trail.)

I usually run this trail when I go to Black Creek, but in the opposite direction - this way is definitely tougher, with a lot of uphill. My legs were also getting tired, which meant my right hip really started to ache at times. On the positive side, this is one of the nicest trails to be on, with a mix of shrub fields, hardwood forest, swamp, and even a short stretch of evergreen grove. I also had a few stretches along here where I actually felt like I was running, rather than just doing the snowshoe shuffle... which helped balance out all the uphill hiking I ended up doing.

So, after two afternoons of snowshoe running, I feel fairly confident I can finish this weekend's races having run a good deal of them (provided the terrain and snow cover cooperate.) And I'm definitely off to a good start for 2008. The trick will be to keep it up once work resumes next Monday!

JMH