Wife caught me practicing in my gravel box a couple of days ago: "Why are you walking on rocks?"
Me: "So I can run on rocks."
7.5 mile trail run today.
Saw a shoddie running down the road and turn into the park as I was driving up. There were some trucks with horse trailers parked in the lot, and avoiding horse apples was part of today's run.
The trail is usually compacted dirt with some rocks scattered about, which are avoidable with a bit of work. Apparently, the park service did some trail maintenance and added a nice soft layer of brown dirt. It was quite luxe.
Caught the shoddie coming back about a mile in. Waved hello, but no response. He must have been out of breath from those heavy shoes!
Around the bridge, there was some of the old trail with rocks, but still manageable.
(photo from a different day)
More nice brown dirt after the bridge, then the grassy part of the trail, which was quite nice, too!
So, after about 3.5 miles in, I came to the gravel section.
(photo from a different day)
From my gravel box experience, I knew that the center part, which is piled high with rocks, is actually the least painful part to run on. Those rocks are loosely packed, so they scatter when you land on them. (Sometimes, I'll pile the rocks in my gravel box into the middle, so I can massage my arches.) However, the problem is that since they are loose, they are actually quite slippery and hard to balance on. (I guess if you want easy, there's always the sidewalk or treadmill.)
Feet were getting a bit sore, though. So, I look at the GPS on my phone to see how far I've gone, to see if I should turn around or keep going.
I figure that I'm about halfway, so I continue on. I get to the end of the gravel section and look at my phone again. If I go around the loop, it's about 5 miles to get back to the car, vs. going back the way I came for 3.5 miles. I'd been swimming most of last year, so 7 miles has been my longest distance in a while.
Suddenly, I hear people chatting! I look down the path and see two ladies ambling towards me slowly, on horses! It's a double track trail, so they're riding side by side. I look up and down the trail, looking for place that I can step aside and let them pass. However, as you can see in the photos, there are no clearings, just Florida scrub, and the area has rattlesnakes. I wave hello, and they say hello.
I really didn't want to run the 5 mile loop. Time was ticking and they were getting closer. I contemplated doubling back, but I didn't want to let them pass, only to have to get past them again. Decisions, decisions. They were just a couple hundred feet from me.
So, off I went, back over the rocks! A bit too proud to stop and take a walking break, I ran through the whole section without stopping and all the way back to the car.
7.5 mile trail run with 500m of rocks.
So after 3 years of stretching and exercising, my bunions are straight, and I can run on rocks. Podiatrists, eat your hearts out!