Location: Orlando, Fl
3.0 miles of trail running, 2.6 miles wandering lost
Okay, so today's story is not so much about the distance or the pace. It was the adventure.
Figuring that running alongside traffic was keeping me running a bit too fast, I located the Little Big Econ State Forest not too far from the hotel and decided to run on the trails they had there. Trail running slows me down as I have to navigate the twists and turns or the trail as well as whatever flora or fauna may present itself. Dutifully I set the GPS and started off through the tropical wilderness following the orange blaze marks.
Everything went well for the 3 miles I jogged. Around 2.5 miles my legs were feeling the strain of the terrain and I was beginning to stumble a bit more on the exposed tree roots or whatever cropped up in the trail but that was expected. At 3 miles I encountered a water hazard blocking the trail and thought it would be a good point to start back towards the car. I put my GPS on back trace and began following my footsteps on the trail using the GPS to pick the right direction when my memory failed me. After about 15 minutes of this, I found myself in a section of the jungle that I distinctly knew I had not visited before though I was right on top of the GPS plotted track. I wandered a bit further and realized something was quite amiss when my GPS heading read due east but I was walking right into the sun at nearly 7:30pm! Yes, somehow with an incredibly accurate GPS in hand I had gotten lost. I gave up on the GPS and relied on the ol' internal navigation to pick trails back towards the car while never finding the original route. The orange blazes would occasionally pop up (on more than one occasion on small trees that had been leveled into piles along the trail) yet never consistently. I suffered the bites of huge Florida mosquitoes and was fairly dampened by sweat before I finally reached the car. The GPS said I was about 0.5 mile from where I was. Maybe new batteries are needed? Or maybe just the dense foliage was giving it problems. One unfortunate result -- I consider the humble pie I must eat a good thing -- was that I ran some stretches in the very silty dirt/sand that passes for soil in this area. It filled my running shoes and socks to the point where it wore some tender spots on my feet. Nasty! It was like running through powder. Not as hard to push through as sand but very fine and hard to get footing on.
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