Training Log Archive: TomN

Exploring the Exeter Trails. The main problem was most of the trails are not in condition yet. Lots of standing water and ice dams. Some of it I could run around cross-country but I plowed through some ankle-deep sections. A secondary problem is that aside from the "main" trail, the system isn't very well-used or well-maintained. Some of the signposts are missing, and some of the trails and junctions are hard to see. I turned back during one water-avoidance move because I was genuinely concerned that if I went any further I wouldn't be able to find the trail again.

I figured out the map. The trails aren't numbered, the signposts are numbered. The trails are unnamed, but some of them have colored designations. The symbol I took to mean "gate" is actually a bridge. But the dumbest thing about the map is the distances. The "red" trail is marked as 2.37 miles, but you have to run on an unmarked connecting loop to do the whole trail. The "green" trail is marked as 1.5 miles, but it has 5 branches, all of which dead-end. How can you do the 1.5 miles? Teleport? The "black" trail, which consists of 6 disjoint segments connecting various other trails, has a total distance, which is worthless without, again, a teleporter. This is evidently the work of someone who doesn't exactly understand how people use trails.

I saw a Mourning Cloak today. Confined to woodlands, they're often the first butterflies of spring. But they're faking it, because they hibernate as adults and it only takes a couple of warm days to wake them up. I also saw 2 of them last Sunday at Prospect Hill. The Mourning Cloaks started flying about 2 weeks ago in Maryland.