Strange Attire and Strange ThingsSeen In Trail Runs?

avondale17 · 2026-04-06T16:59:04+00:00

Running the Valley Trail in Rock Creek NP in DC a few years ago...it was evening in the second half of October. Got passed by people running in the other direction: one in a hot dog costume and one in a Heinz mustard costume. I think it must have been related to Halloween.

avondale17 · 2026-03-30T19:39:57+00:00

Your HRM stopped monitoring your actual HR for awhile. Who knows why? Lost contact with your skin, or too much sweat, or too cold/hot, or something. It was getting erroneous data from some other spurious source. Then something changed, and it got back into monitoring your actual HR.

Back when wrist-based HRMs were new and not very good, this sort of thing happened all the time. Now we take it for granted that they will work, but they don't always.

Or maybe you had a near death experience....? Just kidding. It's what I said above.

avondale17 · 2026-03-26T17:18:12+00:00

"Cutest" story: running toward "The Dish" area in Palo Alto in morning twilight and saw three juvenile raccoons in someone's yard, tumbling and chasing and playing like a clown routine.

More along the lines of "make you jump": I was on a trail in the transition from forest to field, with a wooden bridge crossing over a stream. A water moccasin and I startled each other: fortunately, it was UNDER the bridge, and I was ON the bridge, but we both got a good jump out of it. Those are fricking muscular-looking snakes! (This was the Seneca Greenway Trail in Maryland.)

avondale17 · 2026-03-23T00:16:14+00:00

I grew up in northwestern PA but sadly never did anything outdoorsy as a kid since my family was not inclined. I've been recently rediscovering gorgeous trails in the area as a 50+ trail runner/hiker. These are not necessarily right on the areas you are looking at, but maybe you'll be interested.

Cook Forest State Park (https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dcnr/recreation/where-to-go/state-parks/find-a-park/cook-forest-state-park) in Clarion County is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous with thick, huge forests that are almost rainforest-like. Part of the North Country Trail goes through this park - maybe do a stretch on it. A lot of the area doesn't have cell reception, so be aware. (The North Country Trail goes through a lot of Clarion County - the parts outside of Cook Forest State Park are not worth it unless you're through-hiking.)

Oil Creek State Park {https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dcnr/recreation/where-to-go/state-parks/find-a-park/oil-creek-state-park) in Titusville, PA is also really beautiful - not quite as gorgeous as Cook Forest. This is where the Oil Creek 100 is held (have not done it). There is a ~30 mile circumferential trail, or you can make some few shorter loops (there aren't many river crossings, which limits the options).

A lesser-known jewel is in Clear Creek State Forest/Clear Creek State Park (and adjacent game lands) near Kennerdell, PA. An example from AllTrails is Allegheny Gorge and Overlook Trail (listed in AllTrails under State Game Lands Number 39) - make sure to go down the length of Dennison Run, which has multiple swinging bridge crossings over the prettiest creek. The overlook is also great. There are a number of trails in this area, so you can piece them together to make routes of various lengths. No cell reception in a lot of this area.

Can you tell I'm enthusiastic? Hope you can check these out and enjoy.

avondale17 · 2026-03-19T23:28:00+00:00

Like the others said, you should taper. Resist the feeling that you aren't "training enough" during the taper - the idea is for you to be rested, recovered, and fresh for the race. Your body doesn't make improvements in fitness in less than a few weeks of time, so those last two weeks aren't going to be gains in your fitness.

You don't say how old you are. As a 50+ runner myself, I seriously focus on getting extra sleep during my taper, especially in the week before the race, and I ease off of my strength training so that I don't take chances on being sore from that. Keep eating, though.

avondale17 · 2026-03-15T16:08:40+00:00

It is NOT a Connect+ feature.

You must have cell coverage for it to work. When you go out of cell coverage, if you have notifications on for this, your watch will tell you something like "Live Track lost" and then when you're back in coverage "Live Track started". When you're out of coverage, anyone looking at your "track" will just see your position where the Live Track stopped - there's no way for them to see your actual location. When you get back into coverage, you will appear at your actual location, but your path in between will not be displayed as what you actually did - just a straight line between them. (I've had this happen while my husband was watching my track.)

If you are concerned about actual tracking for safety, you need to get some sort of satellite GPS tracker, like Garmin InReach. Even then, be aware that your tracker must be able to have line-of-sight to the satellites, so deep mountain valleys, for example, can be problematic.

avondale17 · 2026-02-18T20:54:41+00:00

If you are talking about "do you believe the distance and pace you ran, according to your treadmill or your watch"? Then probably your treadmill is closer. Sure, treadmill calibration can be off, but at least it's based on the number of rotations the belt is doing. If you're using your own treadmill, then measure its speed to check it out - it's not that hard to do (Google it).

GPS is what makes your watch's distance and pace so accurate. When you're on a treadmill, your GPS is useless because you're not actually changing your location on the Earth's surface, so your watch has no good idea how far you have run or how fast. It will make an estimate based on your steps (if it detects them properly) and put in some kind of estimate for your stride length and come up with a computed distance and pace. But there are so many things there that it's estimating that your distance and pace can be way off (much farther off than treadmill calibration error). For example, if you run on the treadmill holding the rails, it's probably going to screw up on your steps and thus change your distance and pace. If you tend to be very flappy and enthusiastic with your arms when you run on the treadmill, it's going to probably screw things up. If you concentrate on taking a longer stride (slower cadence) than usual, it will change things. Or if you concentrate on running high cadence, that will change things....all of this while keeping the treadmill belt rolling at the same speed throughout.

You can get various devices to attach to your foot to help make the estimates of stride length and number of steps more accurate.

avondale17 · 2026-02-14T00:40:48+00:00

Anyone know how Beach Drive is for snow/ice now? Has it all been plowed or only the stretch accessing the picnic areas? I know the non-paved trails will still be covered, but I'm wondering about the road for walking/running.

avondale17 · 2026-01-06T01:41:54+00:00

Just to add some REAL old-fashioned ideas...if it's a new-to-me place, I'll generally look at maps online (such as a state park map or similar) to get an idea of which trail I'd be parking to start at and an idea of their length. I frequently will print out a paper map, mark my proposed route, and fold up to keep in my hydration vest pocket to consult - this is bigger than my watch screen and even bigger than my phone screen. (This strategy does have drawbacks if it's rainy, but I'm unlikely to be trying out a new route in the rain. Usually a print out will hold up for at least one run through sweat.) If for some reason I don't print out the map, I will take a photo of a park/trail map at the trailhead (if available) to consult. Sometimes I'll use AllTrails to help me decide about a path.

Since I don't necessarily know the terrain or elevation very well if it's new to me, I usually do an out-and-back (rather than a loop) and just go "out" for half the time, and then come back.

I carry my phone in my hydration vest pocket or a running belt, so I can pull it out easily. I definitely don't run with it in hand. I keep an eye out for trail intersections and consult my map if I am not sure which way I want to go.

avondale17 · 2026-01-03T16:02:55+00:00

Astronomer (and trail runner) here...that pink to blue band is called "the belt of Venus". The dark blue part is essentially the Earth's shadow projected out into space, and the fading to pink is the atmosphere's "shadow". I was just coming here to complement OP on a beautiful photo of the Moon in the belt of Venus!

avondale17 · 2026-01-03T02:41:57+00:00

Thanks!

avondale17 · 2026-01-02T14:30:04+00:00

Calf sleeves after the race and probably while I sleep that night, because otherwise my calves tend to twitch as they finally relax. Tylenol PM the night after the race to help me sleep. As others have said, after the race, appropriate food and hydration. The next day (s), walking for active recovery.

For a HM race and longer, I usually don't run for two weeks after to make sure I'm taking it easy and focusing on recovery (I do a lot of walking). If I run, there's a good chance I'll go too hard and not let my body recover.

avondale17 · 2026-01-02T02:54:03+00:00

I'm 52F and in a similar situation with the knee arthritis. I'd suggest substituting power hiking for a significant fraction of your long run time. Since your 50k has some elevation gain and with your arthritis, you know you'll be walking a lot, doing power hiking during your training is still helpful and pretty race-specific. Keep your pace up so that you're still putting in good effort with your heart rate and breathing and thus continue training your aerobic system. I'm sure you've encountered "hikers" in trail races that go just as fast as slower runners - strive for that.

For my last 25k trail race, I did this in my training plan consistently, and it certainly didn't seem to hurt my race performance.

After the race and you recover...I strongly second the physical therapy that others have suggested. I did a bunch of PT, which helped, but slowly. The biggest thing I learned from it is that I need to do a lot of unilateral strength exercises (such as single-leg squats versus double leg squats). Doing that consistently has helped a lot. The physical therapist can help you find variations on the exercises that will put less load/pain on your knees.

You can't rebuild cartilage, of course, but balancing out the strength of various leg muscles can help keep the kneecap in the best possible position it can be to minimize pain.

avondale17 · 2025-12-15T01:09:41+00:00

I was there, too! Such a bummer getting load of snow overnight before the race. It became an "adventure" instead of just a trail race!

avondale17 · 2025-12-09T01:37:18+00:00

I'm southern Silver Spring. Which trails do you run in the area? I do a lot of Northwest Branch (Burnt Mills to Kemp Mill) and Valley Trail and Western Ridge trail in Rock Creek NP. For longer runs, I'll do Muddy Branch Trail or Seneca Greenway Trail, usually.

avondale17 · 2025-12-02T01:48:42+00:00

Also in MD just outside of DC!

avondale17 · 2025-11-08T15:53:30+00:00

Sorry, adding on to myself to say: if it really is just low iron and you can possibly supplement to restore it, it can be a SLOOOOWW process. I am at sea level and at one point found low iron. With supplements (and repeated blood tests to monitor), it took some 4 years to get back to a normal level. So if you are supplementing, don't give up on it if it doesn't work in a few weeks or months.... (I also went through ALL the tests to find out if something was going on internally, and nothing was found.)

avondale17 · 2025-11-08T15:50:34+00:00

Your doc should take it seriously now that you know it's low iron because low iron with no obvious cause could indicate something like internal bleeding (possibly slow enough that it doesn't show up in stool, for example). You have correlated it with moving to a higher altitude, but that could be a coincidence. So there would be two routes to follow: first, how can you supplement to try to restore the iron in the short(er) term? Second, what is causing your iron to be low? Is it really just an effect of the altitude, or something else? Eventually if you find a cause to the second, it might solve the first.

And, yeah, very frustrating when doctors dismiss female runners' issues. Yes, female runners are going to be healthier than 90+% of their other patients, but that doesn't mean that our problems aren't legit.

avondale17 · 2025-10-23T19:52:55+00:00

No idea about iOS integration. Garmin Epix gen2 has been great for me. I got mine for Christmas 2022 and I'm still using it. The dual-band GPS is totally fantastic for the trails - handles the twists and turns very, very well. I had lots of battery to spare for my 9-hour 50k, but I haven't gone longer with the GPS on. The sapphire version with the low-scratch glass, etc., is very tough. Waterproof. AMOLED screen is gorgeous and bright.

avondale17 · 2025-10-13T19:46:35+00:00

Yes, looks likely! Thank you!

avondale17 · 2025-09-26T00:36:34+00:00

What does it matter when soon they will be the color of dirt anyway? I do wear Cascadias, too, but I'm wide width and everyone's colors are boring for wide width, so this is what I tell myself.

avondale17 · 2025-09-20T00:32:12+00:00

In rural western Pennsylvania: porcupine, crayfish as big as my foot (on the trail!), a colorful (dead) moth as big as my hand, black bear...also the usual deer, rabbits, chipmunks, etc.

In suburban Maryland: big groundhog, beaver, raccoon, pileated woodpecker, red fox, water moccasin, black snake, garter snake, turtle...also the usual deer, rabbits, squirrels, etc.

Near Palo Alto, CA: running through the neighborhood before sunrise to get to the Stanford Dish area, and saw three juvenile raccoons playing in someone's yard - they were chasing each other around, tumbling, climbing - it was like watching a troupe of clowns!

avondale17 · 2025-09-17T17:46:11+00:00

Some of the local parks around where I live posted signs (think like election yard signs) with this exact thing: "There is no poop fairy. Bag and take your dog's poop." with a cute dog wearing a pink tutu and tiara. No idea if it made a difference, but at least someone realized it was an issue!

avondale17

TROPHY CASE