Friday, December 23, 2011

A Trail Running Homecoming

Over the past 6 days, I have spent about 10 hours and covered nearly 60 miles on the Watershed Trails of Greensboro.  There are more than 42 miles worth of singeltrack surrounding Lake Higgins, Brandt, and Townsend and nearly all of it is within Greensboro's city limits.  This trail system, in my opinion, has to be one of the best urbran trail systems in the country.  It may not have huge climbs and soaring views, which is usually my favorite type of terrain to run on, but it has flat to rolling, technical at times terrain that hugs the lakes and pretty much provides a view of the lakes at all times.  It is very scenic and is quite an escape from the third largest metropolitin area in North Carolina.  These trails mean a lot to me, as they are the ones that started my obsession with trail running.  They were also the site of my first trail race, The Triple Lakes Trail Marathon.  There is just something about them that keeps me coming, no matter the low level of difficulty.  If you find yourself in the Greensboro area, make sure you check them out.  There are plenty of loops you can make and if your looking for more of a challenging route on them, I would suggest sticking with the Owl's Roost, Nat Greene, Laurel Bluff, and Townsend trails.  They have more hills than the others and those hills come in steep 50-80 ft burst.  I hope to log a few more miles out there in the next week.  Happy trails and Merry Christmas!
View from Laurel Bluff Trail

2 comments:

  1. hey Brandon, I agree. I live right near the greenway and 100% of my runs are on these trails. I can walk out of my back door and hit some graet single track without having to drive anywhere.
    I have spent my holidays in Polk County (where I grew up) running the Palmetto trail http://www.palmettoconservation.org/bluewall.asp and http://www.palmettoconservation.org/poinsett.asp
    these 2 trails are very good, hilly and technical.
    Looking forward to the Tanawha (weather permitting)

    ReplyDelete
  2. that is awesome man! I'm sure we have ran past each other at some point in the past three years out there. Love those trails and provides great technical trail training (trail dependent of course). Looking forward to seeing you at Tanawha!

    ReplyDelete