Exploring the trails at Kings Mt (Military) State Parks – 45 miles
After racing on Sunday at the Whitewater Center, and with Monday
being a holiday, I decided that a long training run was in order. To
make things a bit more interesting, I wanted to explore some new
trails.
One of the trails that has been on my
bucket list is the hiking trail which circles the Kings Mt State Park
and Kings Mt Military State Park. During my visitor center to visitor
center runs from the Crowder's Mt. State Park to Kings Mt State park,
I had run the short 2 mile section from the Ridgeline trail up to
visitor center. What I hadn't done was the remaining 14 miles of it.
I made plans to run this loop at least
twice and possibly three times if my legs felt up to it. I would use the
visitor center as my base of operations since it was only quarter
mile off the trail. However, when I arrived, I found the visitor
gates locked so I back tracked to the Lake Crawford camp grounds, and
trail head located within it. This trail head is roughly 1 mile from the main tail
loop. Parking is couple of dollars, and I guessing is in the honor
system. I left my $2 and hung the little marker from the front mirror.
Either I did it right or there was no one around to ticket me.
The extra miles out and back from the
camp didn't factor in my decision to launch my runs from it. A few
extra miles don't really manner much after 30+ miles.
The trail head isn't well marked from
the parking lot, but they have plenty of maps positioned around the
area. Between the maps, and the signs, I was able to meander my way
to the hiking trail.
I am not sure why but I decided on
tackling the trail in the clockwise fashion. In hindsight, this was a
good decision.
So one of the things, I never realized
is that there are actually two state parks here. One is Military and
one is not.
This lower section resides inside of
the regular state park. The terrain is not difficult. There were lots
of rolling hills and creek crossings. Some creeks I could skip over.
On a few, I had to wade through the water. One of things that
disappointed me about this section of the trail is the lack of
maintenance on it. In some sections, the trail was over grown, and
the only way to follow it is by looking for the blue trail marking
squares. There were also numerous trees across the trail. After a
while, I gave up attempting to count them. It took roughly 2 hours to
make it the first 7 miles.
Once I crossed over to the military
side of the parks, things were different. The trails were all clear
and well maintained. However, this is side a lot more hilly and there
were still plenty of roots and rocks.
By the time that I finished my first
loop, I had already modified my plan. Instead of making a 2nd loop of
the trail, I would run up to the Ridgeline trail to the the Turnback
Trail in Crowder's Mt State Park. Rough guess, this would be about
18+ miles round trip. This section also had the most difficult
climbing section, and to make manners worse, I would be making this
run during the hottest part of the day. I drank the last of my water
vest's 3 liters of water with 3 miles left.
At this point, my legs were super
fatigued, and I had already fallen once. I considered quitting but I
wanted a long run in prep for 50 miles, and I wasn't going to leave
without.
While I was running my first loop, I
remembered reading about the trail up to the top of Brown Mt which is
about 1045 ft. Some quick math told me this was roughly about 10
miles round trip from the camp ground. I focused on keeping a slow
but steady pace. First, I made the 2+ miles run back to the visitor
center, and then the 2+ miles run out to the top of Brown Mt. This
section has several nasty smaller climbs which I hadn't noticed
during my 1st loop, but after 30+ miles, I was feeling
everything a bit more. The climb up to the top of Brown Mt is a bit
tricky. I made this climb up to what I thought was the top, only to
realize, there was second decent which was followed by another climb.
I just “willed” my legs to the top. Knowing I would finally be headed
back and a step closer to being finished, I found strength in this knowledge.
This gave me the extra push that I needed. I stumbled over a few more
roots and rocks along the way but no more falls. When my Garmin
finally clicked over to 45 miles, I was about ½ mile from car.
Perfect timing, I needed to walk it off. My legs were so stiff and
sore and even standing hurt.
This 45 miles of running took me about
8 hours and 58 minutes. Maybe it is remarkable or maybe not, but I
drank over 10 liters of water yesterday, and I drank even more later.
This was my longest run ever, but more
importantly, I walked away with the added confidence that 50 is with in
my reach now.
The Cool Down Runner
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