Running in the Northern Pines

I spent all day yesterday driving up to Fort McMurray - yes, the bike and gear is loaded in the car. It was a long drive, but I impressed myself with my eating habits for the day - I ate alot of fruit! Only stopped for a bathroom break and to fuel up, so it was a straight 9 hours.

This morning I got up and was planning on going for a bike ride with Kent. I brought him up a new set of Neuvation M28 wheels to replace his 105 wheels with. But then I had another idea.

Last night my wife had mentioned I should go for a run in the forest just outside of Kent's door. She said there's some great trails there - so I convinced Kent to lace up the runners and we headed out the door for the trail. The trail head is literally across the street from his front door and off we went.

Wow. This is what I remember running to be like. It was nice and cool, the air felt crisp and fresh. Pine trees on both sides of the trail reached a hundred feet straight up to the sky. The trail was well groomed (except for a few mud holes) and we saw a few other runners out on the trail. Kent hasn't been runnning in years, so we kept a pretty easy pace - and after about 10 minutes had to slow to a walk for him to recover a bit. No record 5km times today, but wow, what an enjoyable hour out on the trail! I stopped the timer every time Kent needed to stop and so we actually ran for 30 minutes - I estimated it to be about 5km. We walked for another 15 or 20 minutes. I lost satallite reception, so don't know exactly how far we went. My HR never got over 165 (I sprinted a couple of hills to do some light intervals), so I know I really wansn't pushing myself hard.

It absolutely amazes me how beautiful this country is up here. These trails all turn into cross-country ski trails in the winter. The trails are all marked with sign markers (just like the ones on street corners) all over the place. We followed "deer trail" until it met up with "Beaver trail" - and then followed that all the way up to the end of it - there were lots of other trails that branched off. Then we turned around and came back. I think I might make a point of doing a little run like this every morning I'm here this week.

I'm hoping to get a bike ride in this evening. For now, it's off to the office for a full day. We've got lots to do there!