Trail running (running viral day 11)

Today's run didn't feel sluggish. It wasn't fast though. Any time I surged to below 9 min/mile I have to say it felt quite fast.  Overall this lockdown has made me take my time getting around the various courses and meanderings I'm constraining myself to make.

Today's run was a re-run of one I did last year on the 19th of May. That earlier run had been either my second or third with the Sunday/Lookout BFRs group, led by a native of Bracknell, a somewhat older runner with detailed knowledge of the interior of Swinley/Bracknell forest.

It is this 'local knowledge' aspect of the Sunday runs that attracted me. But with this said, there is an equal aspect of the local in the Monday night runs as well, the ones that stick for the most part to town and pavement. 

It is probably the fact that trail running is something special, and that my experiences in the forests here (as opposed to say, in Canada, or in Egham) have been instrumental in cementing my devotion to running on dirt, tracks, undulating paths, and the like.

Today's run was classic trail material, and it was only the second time I had completed this course.  My plan for the summer is to take a number of routes I've saved, especially those from the earlier days of just starting out with the BFRs, and re-run them until I can do them from memory.

I've already accomplished this with the 5km handicap and 5 mile Forest Five race routes. Once I've memorised all those great runs I've completed with the old timers over the last year, I'll have a pretty solid working memory of the forest as a whole.

That's a map worth putting in the miles for.