"A walk in nature walks the soul back home." - Andy Rooney
Final long run (well kind of) before tapering. 22 miles on the trails. Instead of using the same trails I’ve been on all summer, I decided to hit some of the trails at the park which I haven’t been on before. Last weekend my family went to the park to find some geocaches we hadn’t found yet. It was a good activity to keep the younger group busy and allow the older group to get out in nature and do an activity we enjoy – while getting some additional caches.
While at Kickapoo Valley Reserve http://kvr.state.wi.us/Home I found out that there is an annual challenge which encourages people to hike all the trails and canoe the river through the park. After looking at the list of the trails and how they had broken them into segments for the challenge, I realized I had already done over half of them this summer. Knowing I had 22 miles this week I was able to finish another third of them. I have just a few shorter segments to finish the hiking portion. Then – I’ll just have to figure out how to get in a day of canoeing or kayaking on the river to finish the challenge. I’m not worried about the river but figuring out when to fit it in given how late we are in the season is going to be the challenge. http://kickapoovalley.wi.gov/Documents/Recreation/KVR%20Trail%20Challenge%20Form.pdf
I had a whole new experience this week on the trails. I am so glad that I found this challenge. I found some new trails that were completely different than the trails I have been training on. Many of the trails were nice wide, grass paths. One of them had a boardwalk along a marsh. I didn’t even know that KVR had a boardwalk anywhere. Most of the trails at the reserve are single track and narrow.
I have a few segments yet to finish. I plan on including them for my 12-mile trail workout this week. Yep, taper time and I still must do nearly a half marathon. It sure doesn’t feel like a taper.
This summer I have started listening to audio books while hiking. I am enjoying listening to a book better than multiple hours of podcasts. I still love my podcasts, but while out on the trails, listening to a book is more complementary to the environment than self help or business podcasts. However, when I am doing my road workouts on the bike trail along the highway, those podcasts feel more appropriate than an audio book. I’ve been using Libby which is the app libraries use for eBooks and audio books. I’ve been using it for eBooks to read through the kindle app for a couple of years and I am absolutely loving using it for audio now. https://meet.libbyapp.com/
Thanks for joining me this week. Be sure to check our show notes for links to inspiration items and … don't forget to stop and smell the roses.
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