A Gateway Trail

It was a stunning blue sky morning, which is the common weather pattern around here on the rare occasion that the winds slow down. Everybody in the family set out to do what they love to do ... Scott went surfing on the North Shore, Moana went ice skating with a local kids group (yes we have an ice rink here!), and I took Maia for her first off the leash trail run. Ok, so it wasn't really a trail. It's really just an old unmaintained road that goes up the side of a mountain, but you have to crawl through a hole in a fence to get to it so it feels like a trail to someone who doesn't run trails. I think it's actually sort of a gateway trail.

On a Tuesday morning I figured there wouldn't be anyone up there so it would be fine to let Maia run free. I was mostly right. The only guy I saw was actually a casual friend of mine (the running community here isn't that big) and he met Maia at the Jingle Rock 5K last weekend so it was all good.

By the sparkle in Maia's eyes, I think its safe to say that run ranked up in there top experiences of her life- she seemed to be in heaven- darting this way and that, tongue out, smelling everything. She stayed close enough to me that I didn't feel the need to worry, and the one time she did dart off out of sight chasing a mongoose, she came back when I called her. It was pretty much ~45minutes of pure joy for her, which made it pure joy for me, and I definitely had the thought that I can see myself going out of my way to find more off the beaten path areas to run so Maia can be free to do her thing. I feel like I experienced a gateway trail today and that it will lead to more trails in my (our) future.

Next time though I'll be more prepared with towels or something to clean Maia off before we get back in the car. Good thing I'm not meticulous about keeping my car clean.

Later in the afternoon I went out on my own and repeated that Hill Cut-Down session that I did a few weeks ago (4x90"; 4x60"; 4x45", 4x30", 4x15"). It went better today than it did the first time, which felt good. That's definitely my favorite way to break up hill repeats.

Maia likes the hammock as much as I do.