Trail Talk @ TrySports

Last week I received an email from Ben Hernandez a manager at TrySports in South Park. He was inviting me down to a group discussion on trail running. TrySports is forming a group run for individuals wanting to get into trail running. Ben pulled together a group of individuals to lead the discussion that have been very involved with the Trail system around the Charlotte area.

I guess living in Charlotte for over 20 years; I have run on just about every publically known trail around town. Like anyone, I have my favorite trails.

The group leading the discussion included a representative from the White Water Center, Ivan - President of the Tarheel Trailblazers, Andrew – a pretty darn good trail runner with a great knowledge to the Charlotte trail system, Marcus – trail runner and XTERRA racer, and me.

In my opinion, this was a very good group to have sharing their experiences and knowledge about the trail running and the trail system.

Hearing each person's perspective was great for me. For example, I knew about the Tarheel Trailblazers but knew very little of what they did. Ivan shared a lot about what goes into the effort for building and maintenance of these great trails that we have.

He and I also talked about a possible collaboration between the Trailblazers and the Charlotte Running Club. We have a huge membership and while I don't know exactly how many of our members use the trails around Charlotte, I would suspect that it is a sizeable number. One thing that I do know is during the heat of the Charlotte summers, our members love the shade provided by these trails.

One area where Ivan shared that they need the most help is with trail maintenance. He sent me a link this morning to their upcoming trail maintenance work days. Click here to see it.

I encourage everyone in our club to take time out and give these guys a hand on one of their work days. They provide the tools. All we need to do is provide the gloves, water, and the sweat equity. In my mind this is a fair trade for some great trails.

 

Sharing one thought at time,

The Cool Down Runner