the Way of the Turtle

3 1/2 Hour Run in the Wilds of Thacher State Park
Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Several days later than I intended, and at Thacher rather than October Mountain State Forest in MA, and not as long (distance-wise) as I'd hoped to do - but I finally got off my backside and ran my long run for the week.

My plan was to run the escarpment up to the OSI/Thacher property, then run the Long Path out to the old quarry, then head back and loop through the Paint Mine/Hop Field trails to finish out at about 15-16 miles. As usual, things didn't go quite as I'd planned...

The run along the escarpment and up into the OSI/Thacher property went as expected - I've run both many times before, since the latter part is a section of the second loop of the Indian Ladder trail run (in other words, I ran it a little over a week ago in the race!) Hit the gravel road - and lost the Long Path. So I made my way along the gravel/stone roads we used last year in the Hairy Gorilla Half Marathon and ended up at the old quarry. From there it was easy to find the Long Path again... running that section was another story! After a good start I ended up first heading through a meadow with waist-high grass and uneven footing (ie walk or blow out a knee.) Then the trail headed into the woods and became a "true" hiking trail - barely discernable singletrack (thank heavens for blazes!) with mostly uneven footing (again, lots more walking.)

I made it back to the Indian Ladder area about 3 1/4 hours into the run, and realized I just didn't have the time to loop up into the woods (I needed to be over at the karate school later in the evening to teach class.) So I returned along the escarpment and did the final bit along the road, wrapping up at 3 1/2 hours and probably about 12.5 miles. Tired but not thrashed, which I take as a decent sign for both the Savoy 20 mile trail race in a few weeks and the Adirondack marathon in 1 1/2 months. Still have a bunch of training to do, but it looks doable.

JMH