Typically, people associate vacation with laying back and relaxing, but personally, I do not. I try to keep to my typical routine, at least time wise. I still get up early and go to bed around the same time, and I gain my relaxation from exploring new places. One of the best ways to really enjoy, experience, and view all the nooks and crannies of a place you are visiting is by going for a run. This bodes well in both the wilderness of national parks, and even bustling metropolises, either way, a ton can be gained from these speedy excursions on one’s feet, but just be prepared, because it might not always go as planned and could end up in some serious confusion if you take too many twists and turns and cannot retrace your steps, but as long as it ends safely, getting lost just adds to the experience and a better understanding of the place being explored.
I have not always been running the number of miles that I run now, but even when I ran lesser distances, running was still something I tried to do on vacations. On previous vacations when I first started running, this typically occurred on the beaches in Florida, and the beach gives two good ways to run. One of which is on the sidewalk along the street. This way while running, it is easy to see all the shops and restaurants close by that have good potential to visit. The other alternative is to run on the beach in the sand. This will give some added resistance to the run, but it will give a great view, and it really makes the running distance possibilities endless, at least in Florida where the beaches seem to extend forever, but on the rockier coasts with cliffs, this would not work as well. Then when you finish, you can hop into the water for a refreshing dip.
When I was a junior in high school, we went down to Cocoa Beach for the week of the Fourth of July. There was immediate beach access from the condo, so one morning I decided that it would be best to go on the beach and run with no shoes, back when I used to really enjoy doing activities barefoot, things have since changed. From the beach out in the distance there was a church steeple visible, with no real distance plan in mind, I started my steeple chase. Running right next to the water was the best option because the surface sand was hard and moist. As I ran and ran, it seemed like the steeple was staying the same distance away, like running down a never-ending hallway. By the time I made it to the church, I was not impressed by the view and had incredibly sore feet. It was setting up to be one of the longest runs I had done in quite a while. To add insult to injury, the tough sand and moisture were starting to give my feet blisters as well. At this time, I did not have a fancy GPS watch, or even an app on my phone to track my run. So, on my way back, I had no real way of gaging how close I was to making it back to the hotel, but I knew I was ready to be done, which made the seconds and minutes drag out even longer. On top of this, I could no longer visualize which hotel I was staying, so now I was running with blistered feet and running up to different hotels to see which one was mine, until I finally picked the right one and got to go inside and rest my feet. A couple lessons were learned, one: wear shoes, two: have some way of measuring the distance so you know how far you went and how close you are to the start.
One of the best running experiences I have had on vacation come from my trip to the Pacific Northwest, which was also the first trip that I was seriously running a ton of miles. Olympic National Park in Washington is one of if not the most beautiful place that I have ever been. One night, we stayed in a small little cabin by Lake Crescent. This was a beautiful area with a mountain landscape view beyond the lake. When I got up in the morning, there was only one direction to run in, so I took off in that direction wondering where the road would take me. It ended at a trail parking lot, and the trail was made from an old rail line that went along the edge of the lake. With no cars in the parking lot and being in bear and mountain lion country with no one knowing where I was running, I was reluctant to continue, but the call for exploration is always strong, so I went on and did not regret it. Along the path I came across a deer and when it saw me, it managed to scamper up a cliff that no man could have run up, which was a very impressive sight. Then I came to another contentious point in my journey. There was a large tunnel with a giant gaping black mouth that I was staring into. I knew it had to be a decent length, and that it had some curve in it because I could not see to the other side, it was just blackness. So, I stopped and stared at it. Again, scared that some giant creature might be lurking inside, or some more sinister nature spirit waiting to attack an unsuspecting jogger. I really did not want to enter a tunnel I could not see through, and that is when I saw a path that went up a little hill and took me closer to the lake edge. Little did I know this led to one of the most beautiful views I would see on the trip. When I came down on the other side of the hill, I saw a bridge that went over a small cove of the lake, and while on the bridge the blueness of the water was so pure and vivid that it was like nothing I had ever seen, and it was all set up with a beautiful mountain landscape in the distance, and it is something I never would have seen if I had not gone on the run.
On this same trip, I also had the chance to run in Mount Rainier National Park, which was way up in elevation and still snow covered in early June. There was not much space to run because the options were running back and forth between two parking lots a little over half a mile apart or going down the side of the mountain and having to run back up, which did not seem like a good choice. So, I ran back and forth, then became a little braver and ran down a closed road for a little bit before I decided it was probably best not to run on a closed road in which I did not know why it was closed. While on the run, I saw some wild turkeys or birds that looked like turkeys and experience some nice vistas.
I also got to run through Bend, Oregon along the Deschutes River, which had a very nice trail path along it. It was also a great place to run because they have a very strong running and exercise culture there. Then I got to run along Puget Sound in Seattle along a paved path for bikers and runners. Not to mention that I also got to run up at Crater Lake for a day and ran on some trails right outside of our cabin and saw some sights that I would not have seen otherwise. So, on this trip I got to experience some of the best nature running that I have ever done, but I also got to experience some bigger cities in ways that would not have been possible if not done on foot. There were numerous sights that will stick in my mind forever due to the exploration running brought me.
This brings me to one of my favorite running travel stories, which brings us to an international setting. When I was going into my junior year of college, I traveled to Costa Rica for a nine-day Maymester education class, an exploration in diverse cultures in education. While there I would get up in the morning and wander around the town we were staying. It was not too large, and it was easy enough to navigate, if I stayed close to the hotel where we were staying, but one afternoon, I decided to get a little more adventurous on a run. I ventured out of the city and ended up in the country. I was only looking for around five miles, nothing crazy, and I had a GPS watch at this point, so I knew how far I would be going. The countryside in Costa Rica is beautiful, there are rolling hills with peaks with vistas that have far reaching views. The roads are made of dirt, and there is sparse housing. So, I ran out and when I was ready to come back, so I could make it back for lunch with the class, I thought I knew where I was going, but I very quickly realized I did not. I had no recollection of taking enough turns to have the potential of getting lost, but this turned out to be false. So, I started to guess. I felt like I had a general idea of where I was going, even if I did not recognize where I was, I thought that I would be able to run in the right direction until I recognized something, but this is where I realized I was in trouble.
Somehow, I had made a giant circle and still had no idea where I was, and I had no idea how I had gone in a circle, I thought I had been going in one direction, but somehow, I went through a portal and ended up in a place I had been previously with no idea how to get back. So, at this point, I ended the GPS on my watch to hopefully use the map from the run to find my way back. I was already at five miles, my intended distance. Sadly, my plan did not work because I was international, I had my phone on airplane mode so that I did not rack up a massive roaming bill. The map from my watch did not transfer to my phone and my phone could not find my location, so I was stuck. This left me with one option, to continue to wander around and hope that something looked familiar. Still all confused about where I was, I decided to use the limited Spanish I had. I found someone that looked white, and I tried to speak to him in English, and after a look of confusion, I switched to my working knowledge of Spanish. I am far from fluent, but I could get by well enough. I asked him where the city was in which I was staying, to which I got the reply that I was in said city, which was unhelpful, so I got more specific. By our hotel there was a massive white church, so I asked where the grande blanco iglesia was, to which I got some slightly helpful directions. Shortly after this encounter, I started to recognize where I was, I entered the city from completely different way from where I left, and I was super late for lunch, so I did not get the chance to take a shower. Thankfully, I did know where the restaurant was, so I continued my run there and sat down at the one remaining spot at the table completely drenched in sweat and incredibly embarrassed and recounted my tale to a slightly worried class. As terrifying as this was in the moment, I look back on it fondly as a fun story, and grateful that I could see a more natural side of the country that I would not have seen otherwise. Later in the week I walked out there with a friend to share the excellent views I had seen.
My last story from the past brings me to my favorite location, Moab, Utah, the home of Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. The red rock of Utah is on a whole separate plane of existence than any other place I have visited. It is regularly compared to being on an entirely different planet because the landscape is so unique. So, one day after hiking, we were back at the hotel, and I got the itch, I needed to go for a run, and at this point, it was dark out, but I had to go. So, I grabbed my headlamp, put on my overly baggy running shorts, and went out into the night with no real plan in mind. Thankfully I found a paved path that took me under the highway and alongside the Colorado River. Once on the other side it brought me to a less developed area of nature. As I ran along, the head lamp I was wearing fell off my head and broke, but as it turns out this was the best-case scenario, because now I was more in tune with the surroundings and got to look up at the brilliant night sky above me and enjoy running under the stars in the beautiful landscape that I love so much. It was truly a special run. I went on a little farther and got to a campground and turned around and headed back. The desert night chill was crisp and comfortable compared to the harsh dry heat of the day, so running at night was the best possible option and another great memory.
Currently I am in the early stages of another trip that started in North Dakota, and has since touched parts of Wyoming and Montana, with a deeper dive into South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska to come. When I landed in Fargo, it was just flat land for as far as the eye could see. Four hours later we arrived in Dickinson, which had more rolling hills, and is located just 30 minutes away from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. So, when we got to the hotel, for my runs over the next few days, I had envisioned a dirt road with rolling hills that goes on forever, and this runners dream that I dreamt came true, and with some added beauty. A mile away from the hotel, I found a dirt road that went through massive fields of farmland with rolling hills. So, my first two milage runs I got to enjoy the vast fields of sunflowers that extended into the horizon. The next day I had to do my long run. Since we had a long day ahead of us, I woke up at five and was out running by 5:30. Once I got out onto the farmland, I looked to my right and there was a small red sliver peaking over the horizon line of the sunflower fields. As I continued to run, I kept my head craned to the right watching as a blazing red ball slowly inched its way up into the sky in a beautiful goose bump inducing moment. Had I not had to long run, I would not have experienced this breath-taking sunrise.
I just finished reading a book called That Wild Country that tells the story of a guy and his national park experiences, and it goes into the history of national parks and public lands, and one of his main points is that when people go to national parks, they all have different ideas as to how they want to use the lands, but since they are public lands, then everyone has the right to use them in the manner that they find the most joy . So, for me one of the best ways to get the most out of a trip into public lands is to go for an exploratory run to get some extra time on some trails and parts of the park that I might not have seen while hiking. Another one of the inspirations for running on my trips and seeing as much as possible came from my Cross-Country coach in college. I told him that I was going to visit Acadia national park in Maine the summer between my junior and senior year, and he told me about how when he went, that he ran a 20-mile loop through the park, and that just sounded so amazing to me. Now when I went, I did not accomplish this 20-mile loop, but I did get some good coastal and trail running in while there. All of this is to say that if you take the time to really explore the destinations that you visit, you will not be disappointed, even if it results in getting lost, it just adds another exciting story to the repertoire. So when you go, get out there and explore!
Comments