I knew that I had a commitment yesterday evening preventing me from joining you guys for the Wednesday night training session from the store.  So I decided to take advantage of the blue sky, sunshine, and 27F yesterday at noon to get some miles in.  Instead of running the same ole-ole neighborhood course I decided to hop in the car and run the trails at Tom Sawyer Park.  I have done those trails numerous times before, and though the park is not huge, there are plenty of real trails in real wilderness (just ignore the traffic noise from Hurstbourne).

I enjoyed the run up to about 4 miles (with one challenging water crossing) and was already on my way back to the car, when I obviously did not pay enough attention and all the sudden found myself hitting the ground, real hard.  My left side took a pretty good hit.  One of these tree roots ……..  I don’t remember ever having a bloody knee since childhood, now I am the proud owner of one.  And my left thumb did not want to stay behind and took a good beating as well.  And some other minor scrapes and bruises in different places.  Besides that, 5 ½ miles of trails and some bruised ego.  Surprisingly, my knee did not complain at all about the early run this morning, but my thumb does not want to do any work anymore after changing shape and color over night.  So much about the joys (and risks) of trail running.

Isn’t that a perfect promotional story for the Otter Creek Park trail run this Sunday?  With most of the leaves on the ground and potentially some snow on top of it, it will be an interesting run.  Dry and temperature in the low thirties, it can’t get any better than that.  So join us on Sunday.  We will leave from the Fleet Feet store between 7:15 and no later than 7:30 am.  And bring some band aid.

Manfred