have you ever been to which or else has
no running no never
would that be a weird sign absolutely no
i'm jim zellers i'm erica flowers and
this is how she trail runs
and this is how we trail right
trail running is just moving along on a
trail faster than you'd walk
yeah so i think a trail can be anywhere
it
can be in a city it can be on the
mountains it can be super epic but it
can also just be like a path in your
neighborhood
that's not paved and that counts as
trail running yeah i mean once you just
step out of your house or step out of
the car and you're into dirt and
there's a path that you see i mean
that's it
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so i think the first mistake people make
with trail running is thinking that
it has to be mileage which people often
do for road running but i think with
trail running it's better to pick like a
time
because like a one mile on trail could
take an hour or it could take
10 minutes so i think like for your
first trail run it's maybe best to just
start with like i'm gonna go run for
20 minutes and not try and get like a
certain amount of mileage but just pick
a trail
ideally if it's your first one probably
something that's like pretty flat and
maybe not super rocky just so you can
get used to running on kind of more
uneven ground
so make a turnaround time yeah exactly
like when if you're doing it out in
background like out for 10 minutes back
for 10 minutes
i mean maybe that's the other thing that
i think people often think about with
trail running is they assume they have
to run
all the uphills and i don't think that's
true like you can go on a trail run and
you can like
hike the steep up hills and run the
flats and downhills and that's still
true
that's the deal it's like people say i'm
going to run you see them walking you're
like you don't look like you're running
no but that counts
as long as you did like some running
over the course
of the hike run i think that comes as
trail running all right
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when you go to pick a trail and you know
it's a busy trail do you pick a
different time of day do you just pick a
whole different trail altogether i mean
how fun is it to run
past lots of people on a trail i mean
the nice thing about running
is that unlike being on a bike it's
pretty easy to like give people room and
just bounce around
and you're also running so if you're
passing them it goes pretty quickly
if you're going on a super busy trail
you're going early in the morning or
kind of the off times versus
kind of right at the beginning of the
day or the end of the day when most
people are out there
or just picking a different trail i
think just generally though starting
someplace close to home and whether
that's
like googling trails by your house or i
feel like most city parks even have
trails and that's kind of a good place
to start
i'm gonna go running for an hour so i
think if you can i'd carry water with
you
because i mean depending on where you
are and what the temperature is it's
always good to have water especially in
case you get lost
in a jacket and those would be like the
two main things in addition to shoes
that i think you need
and then beyond that like it's nice if
you can bring a phone or a map so you
don't get lost
a buddy so you have someone else there
to enjoy it with or commiserate with um
that's what's great i don't think you
need a lot to start trail running but
how often do you go with just nothing
a lot yeah right i mean it's not that
big a deal like we were talking about
this you know you take the kids to
soccer practice you know and all of a
sudden they need
four breaks and orange slices and all
this stuff you're like it's an
hour they're fine a lot of us think we
need way more than we do
yeah so if you're gonna go on an hour
run you know the trail
really all you need are shoes yeah and i
think that's what's great is like
some clothes yeah we'll close awesome
yes
i think you can be pretty friendly to
the people you see on the trail like
most people are out there hopefully
getting some endorphins are in a good
mood and want to kind of share that so
weaving saying hello i love it i love it
yeah i think yeah i mean there isn't a
ton of
trail etiquette and trail running other
than just being aware that people have
different paces and that's okay
and if people want to pass you can let
them and cheer them on i feel like
there's a lot of camaraderie out in
trail running because
everyone is out there suffering to some
degree but also hopefully having some
fun
as respect for the trail itself and the
trail bed that's been designed
so if a trail is going up a hill and
it's the only way you can't go straight
up because it's too steep so they're
going to like do a smaller
lesser gradient go up and hill back and
forth back and forth some people go i
don't want to go all the way to the end
and cut i'm just going to go straight
through
so they're going to cut this switch back
going through the woods or whatever
what's your take on that so ultimately
you don't want to do that
because it's going to damage like that
trail was built in such a way that it's
kind of being respectful of the
environment and the vegetation and
there might be some vegetation that
they're trying to regrow in that area so
by staying on the trail you're kind of
minimizing the human impact on it
um the fact that someone has been out
there building this trail like on the
top of a mountain is
incredible and it's like we just get to
enjoy it and there's no one else out
there
right so so like keep it
yeah keep it on the trail keep it on the
trail
one of my favorite things about trail
running is just the places that you get
to go
so one it's like physically really
satisfying to like
run up to the top of a mountain or the
top of a hill
like hiking is great but running you can
get to twice as many places and twice as
far because you're just moving so much
faster
i'm just blown away by the places that
just your two feet can take you and i
think there's something
pretty special about it and it's so
simple and i think you said earlier it's
like freedom right
like all you need are shoes and your
body and your lungs and you can just go
and if you go back to definition of
trail running like you said
you only have to run part of it yeah
exactly walk a ton
and then go back and tell everybody you
went trail running yeah exactly
yeah right that's that's cool i could do
that yeah yeah
you could be a trail rider yeah like if
i ran from the car to the bathroom and
then i walked the whole trail
it's a very social sport in a way that
the fact that trail running you could be
you know side by side or
close together and you know chatting the
whole way up the mountain all the way
the whole way down and
i don't know about that like maybe
you're chatting all the way up the
mountain
but for me i'd probably go with you and
ask you open-ended questions
yeah that's a good tactic actually and
you just
pull your breath right when you're
asking so they can't tell you're
breathing really hard
yeah i think that's the way to do it
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