the Way of the Turtle

6 Mile Run in the Albany Pine Bush
(with a little bush-whacking)
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

So tonight before week 5 of the 6 week women's self-defense program we've been running at the karate, I decided to work in a short (5-6 mile) run. Admittedly part of my motivation was the unseasonably warm weather - I don't expect to run without tights much in the next three months or more. Headed over to the water tower area of the Pine Bush to try as much of a perimeter run as I could manage, given the way the trails are blocked and torn up over in the Great Dune section.

Headed off on my usual loop along the red trail and up the hill onto blue. Thought I might actually get all the way around the blue loop... but they've extended the destruction (oops - habitat restoration) into the furthest section of that trail, so I ended up bushwhacking for a while along the edge of the work zone, until I could finally rejoin the blue trail (after having to plow through a bunch of pricker bushes... gah!) Then I had a pretty good run along the rest of blue and back up red, with a final bit along the sandy trails near the water tower trailhead.

As I've said before, I understand the need for the habitat restoration work to restore an environmentally unique area to something resembling its original state. But I really do miss having the full blue and yellow trails to run on (and I suspect we'll be losing more of them before the work is done - they're clearing a total of 28 acres.) And I'm not at all confident they'll ever restore those trails - so far nothing has been done to restore the trails that were torn up in the Columbia Circle restoration a year ago.

Sadly, removing those trails will probably only lead to even more people using the illegal trails (I'm sure I'll find it difficult to resist the temptation.)

I guess I should be grateful to have "wild" areas to run in so close to home. But after running those trails for the last six years or so - I'm going to miss them.

JMH