Running Every Trail

Things we do in the apocalypse.

If you look at it from the right angle this year has been a year of discovery. Think about it.  It has been a year of firsts.  A year of changes.  A year of challenges.  And those types of years will cause us to grow – if we survive.

I started work at a new company in January of 2020.  It was a new role but also a different type of company.  I’ve been engaging with smaller companies for the last 20 years and I made the decision to engage with a larger company.  To try something different.

One of the many things that the larger company has is mandatory volunteer days.  They want everyone to take at least 2 days a year and volunteer for something.  This was different for me. Usually if I wanted to volunteer for something I’d take a vacation day.

Then we got the apocalypse in March.  That changed just about everything, including the volunteer opportunities.  Usually I could volunteer at a race of some sort – but those were all canceled.  As we started getting close to the end of the year I realized I needed to figure something out fast.

I sent an email to the library, because, you know, books.  But, they said they could not take volunteers in the apocalypse.  They were quite short with me.  Who knew librarians could be so snippy.

Then I had a brilliant idea.  I would volunteer for the trail committee in town and help clean up the trails.  They did not reject me.  They said I could do it.

And that was how Ollie and I ended up walking 5 or 6 miles of trail on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, picking up trash and whacking insolent bushes with the machete.

And here again I learned something new.  When I told them I was trail walking they sent me to a couple of trails.  One of which I had never been on.  A beautiful 3-mile loop on an old cross country ski area.

I had to kick myself. I have been running the trials in this town for 25 years and here I was on a trail that was new to me.  How could such a thing happen?

There is a trail guide for the town, and I have been reading through the descriptions of all the trails.  There are more that I have never been on.

I thought to myself, “Why don’t I start a project of running every trail in town?”  This sounds simple on the surface.  But there are some challenges.

My town is a small New England town.  It has acquired properties over the years through town purchase or estate donations.  These are odd little bits of land for the most part.  Some are swamps.  Some are just small fields.  Most are relatively small for someone like me to run it.

I’m typically looking for at least 6 miles.  It’s hard to get 6 miles out of one of these little parcels.  I’m having to tie multiple parks and trials together.  And that is part of the fun.

For example, the conservation land I run behind my house is actually 5-6 different parcels that I string together.

Another challenge that you will find is planning your route so that you actually cover each trail section.  Even in these small parcels this is a challenge.  Most chunks of land have an outside trail loop.  This will be the longest.  Run around the periphery of whatever piece of land.  That’s the easy part.

Typically, within that outer loop there is then going to be a bunch of crossing paths.  You need to look at it and figure out how to zigzag across these to pick them all up.  This definitely causes some doubling up.

The other challenge is that the loops have multiple access paths that shoot out of the parks like legs on an octopus.  There is no way to run those as a loop, so you end up doing a bunch of out and backs to pick them up.  My rule is that you have to tag the trail head for it to count.

And what even counts as an official trail?  There are paths that lead off to private property.  There are game trails.  You have to make a call.  I go with whatever the official trail map in the trail guide shows, or as close as possible.

So far, I’ve picked up a bunch of trail sections and done some excellent adventuring with Ollie.  When we get back, we send our Garmin plot over to the trail guys with any notes about downed trees or odd conditions.   I’m wondering if there is a way to overlay all these different Garmin plots onto one master map so that I can show progress?

The lesson learned here is that sometimes there is more under your nose than you realize.  Because you are not focused on those things so you don’t’ see them.  In the apocalypse I bet you can find the roads of your town and trails of your town fertile grounds for exploring.

When you can’t get on a plane to Maui to run up Haleakala you can create your own local adventure.  That’s something to keep you busy.  And a goal to keep you sane.

Give it a try and let me know what you learn.