The parks are closed this weekend for Easter (to try to keep an influx of people in the city away from each other – though I’m not sure what influx we were actually expecting when no one should be traveling). This includes the greenbelt where I usually run. My boss gave me directions to a different running spot this week that starts at a greenbelt trailhead but then you veer off the map in the opposite direction.
I decided to give it a try and have a little adventure this morning. The trailhead was less than a ten minutes drive away and though I did get nervous dodging the trail closed sign (again, it started as a greenbelt trail) I braved it anyway. What I found was a maze of trails not on the map and spent the next hour and a half exploring. There were more hills than my usual route and the trails criss-crossed and petered out and sometimes weren’t trails so that I mostly kept myself busy heading in random directions and turning around. This made the run very slow (I covered the six or so miles in about the same pace anyone could do at a steady walk), but did make me more mentally engaged during the run.
I had to reframe my goal early on — there was no way I was going to do ten miles as I had planned (it would have taken me forever at my halting pace) — to focus on the adventure rather than the exercise. It was completely deserted on the trail. I didn’t see anyone for the whole time until I headed back to the trailhead and passed two bikers. This was a peaceful, social distance win. It was also pretty easy to get lost which I didn’t care about for most of the run but started to care about when it took me a mile of weaving and consulting my google maps to try to figure out how to get back to where I started.
At least it was something new to see and do — a craving I think a lot of us share right now. And even though I hadn’t hit my original mile goal, it was still a healthy movement to start my day of a Spider-Man movie marathon. Plus I went for a second three-mile run in my neighborhood after the first movie to make up for it.
With Love,
Natalie