No matter how many times it happens, I'm always surprised when I head out of my hotel for a run through an office park or Home Depot parking lot and I stumble upon great trails to run. When I'm on the road it's pretty much "Groundhog Day" everyday. Roll into town, head to the venue, load in, sound check,dinner, gig, hotel, repeat. When I get checked in to the hotel at night I always open up Google Maps and see what's around. First looking for the obvious, State Parks, wilderness areas, etc. if there's a body of water, that's always a safe bet that there might be running trails near by. Some days there's just nothing. Two days ago in Salem,NH this was the case. I'd resigned to going out to run for an hour wherever I could. It was a Holiday Inn right off the Interstate, at the end of the road there was a large office building, I decided I'd run around behind the building before heading elsewhere. Right beside a large power transformer box was a faint opening in the woods. I'll always investigate, but I thought maybe it led to a picnic table for employees to lunch on. But it opened up to a small jeep road, like an access road for a gas line I think. Whatever it was I took it, anything beats running on the road. It weaved through the woods for about a mile before coming to a crossing at a street in an office complex. I looked around and found another entry across the street and I was back in the woods. This time it only lasted a short time before coming back out of the woods to a intersection. I surveyed the area and noticed a crappy " pre-fab" skatepark across the street and decided to check it out, once I got over there I realized the skatepark was part of a city park, complete with a lake and ,you guessed it, a one mile-single track trail around the lake. I took a couple of laps around the lake and headed back to the trail to take me back to the hotel. I was feeling extremely lucky for having found all of this when I was just heading out to run up and down the interstate access road for an hour. Well, it happened again today and it happens a lot. Not because I'm lucky, but because I go out looking . Today was pretty easy, head toward the river and look for trailheads, bam! Farmington River Trail a half mile from my hotel. It's not always like this, I've logged many a mile on busy highways with no sidewalks, cracked city streets, repeats behind the hotel you name it. But I'm just grateful today to realize that if you're not out there looking for it you'll never find it. That goes for running trails too. 😉
