A trail adventure with AG

My excellent vacation was topped off today with a Bethpage trail run with Adventure Girl. We decided to run the trails instead of the bike path and set off without a map relying solely on our sense of direction. We started the run by discussing the Garmin 50 and the QStarz Sports Recorder and how annoying it is when you do a run and forget to turn the thing on or off. After we ran a little more than half a mile (at one point through a barely-there trail with snakes!) we saw that our trail ended at the edge of the woods. I looked at the Garmin to see how long we had run only to discover that I failed to turn it on. That was indeed annoying but we turned back in the direction we'd come, a little more knowledgeable about the layout of the terrain.

We ran a number of trails, staying primarily with the wider cinder covered paths, until we reached a clearing and took what I believed to be a northern route. That trail eventually ended along a road and we soon figured out that we'd been traveling west. Instead of heading back on the same trail we hit the road (actually the sidewalk) and ran north to where we could get back onto the trails from a neighborhood entry point. We followed that trail and switched over to others that looked interesting as we went. It was a great experience, our pace was moderate and the tree cover was good. The path began to get sandy which was tough for running (for me, AG never ever complains) and we reached a point where we weren't sure where to go. The goal was to head south but AG thought it was one way and I thought the other. The sun was directly overhead so that gave us no help. I decided to go AG's way because she's more experienced and, well, she ended up being right.

We followed the trail south until it intersected with the bike trail allowing AG to experience my hated run-ending hill with me. We flew down the final hill and headed to my car for water and then to the shaded benches for shelter from the sun. We were very hot and sweat-soaked and splattered a little with mud but we agreed it was an excellent run. We headed back to my house and AG enjoyed some swimming races with my son in the pool before we shared a high carb lunch with my wife and kids.

We downloaded the QStarz GPS data, which was wacky because it not only recorded our run but everything afterward including the drive home. That certainly helped our overall pace! The QStarz again failed to export the real time recorded data and even after a reset and re-test it still fell short. Too bad - so much potential but so many problems.

It's been a great vacation and today's 4.x mile run puts me very close to 30 miles since I've been off. Tomorrow and next week I go back to the normal routine but I look forward to my early morning runs in the dark. Today was a blast and I couldn't imagine it any better.