On The Trail Again

I admit I have not been running enough or been out to see my friends on the trails enough this summer.  It has been a very busy summer of moving, a little Tri training, but mostly selling our house and moving.  Steve and I are signed up for the Half marathon at Woodstock this year and we are very behind at training.  This morning I was determined to get on the trails and Steve actually woke up early enough to join me.
We met up with a good group of friends down at my old haunt the Poto, and there was another group arriving at the same time who were friends with Cindy.  Fun times with lots of folks out to enjoy a great day on the trail.

I somehow twisted my ankle after only a couple miles and fell hard on my knee.  I was fine and able to keep running after a brief walk, unfortunately my Lotta Breeze Capris just got a bit breezier!

It was a muggy, sweaty, buggy time on the trail, a typical Summer run.  I found myself thinking about the differences between the winter runs on this trail and summer runs.  Summer has the lush greenery and wonderful warm sunshine, however in the winter we don't have deer flies.  Steve tried out the fly tape you stick to your hat.  I wasn't really bothered by them much but Steve was proud of every one that he caught.  He commented that it was like having his cell phone on top of his hat and the constant buzzing made him think he was getting messages.  (Eeww!)

We ran into a third group and stopped to chat with Dawn, who I had met at the Highland Loops race, Leslie you were missed!  Steve and I had left the group and were doing a shorter loop with the hiking trail to make 6 miles when we ran into Dawn's group again on the other side as they were trying to add some more miles to their run, meanwhile Cindy's group had run into them earlier on.

Lots of friends on the trail today.

Steve got a second wind in the final stretch and went on ahead of me, I was being careful on the downhills and found a big turtle in the middle of the path.  He took up a good chunk of that part of the trail.  Steve said he never saw him.  Either Steve was going too fast or the turtle climbed up there just after Steve breezed through.  Poor shy guy didn't want his picture taken.

Steve and I finished up before most folks and had a nice wade in the lake before heading to the Howell farmer's market.  I am a little sad we missed folks returning from the run, but this just means I need to make it out to Poto more often.  It's a great time to be on the trails!