Trail Work

Well I finally made it out to a work party on Cougar. I've been trying to get out to one of SRC's work party's for over a year but my schedule never seemed to match up. I guess I just had to try a little harder.

I went out to the trailhead a little early so I could get a 3 mile run in before we started. Everything seemed to be working well but I know I need a little more recovery after the craziness of doing the Slam. I ran 2 miles on Thursday which worked out a lot of rust and kinks in my legs. I also figured there'd be a lot of standing around a waiting for something to do. Luckily I was wrong about the standing around part. If there's work to be done, I don't like standing around just talking about it.

There were about 8 volunteers that started at 10 am. None of us had any idea what we'd be doing when we got there. It turned out to be a pretty good workout. We used wheel barrels to haul gravel about 1/2 mile to a section of trail that needed repair by Coal Creek Falls. It was pretty tough pushing them up some parts of the trail and even harder holding the wheel barrels back on the steep downhill sections of trail.

We finished the repairs about 2 pm. It's good thing because we were slowing down a lot at the end.

Anybody out there that hasn't done this should try a little harder to get out and give a little back. If you can't make a work party then volunteer at a local race. Even one race a year from each of us would be more than enough. You'd be amazed on how much fun you can have working your tail off. And what other time do you get 4 hours of chatting with fellow runners without having to worry about tripping on a log.