I (Heart) Huckleberry

One mandatory outing when I visit Blacksburg is to run what is now known as The Huckleberry Trail. It’s an asphalt bikepath that begins just off the back lot of the Blacksburg Public Library and forks at the edge of an established neighborhood near Airport Road. You can go straight through open fields to the New River Valley Mall or turn left into one of the college town’s many tree-lined, venerable neighborhoods. Then there’s the third option, which Colleen and I selected on Sunday. We hung a right and eventually went off the asphalt onto gravel and dirt tracks that form a circumference around the Virginia Tech campus, which as the state’s agricultural university is full of farmland. We passed cornfields, horses, cows and sheep and saw a stray groundhog shoot by us. The setting was so serene it almost felt surreal.

I don’t normally run in such a bucolic setting, so the quiet, rolling rain-soaked terrain and especially the soft running surface -- so forgiving to my marathon-weary knees -- were welcomed. The high humidity was not. This should have been an easy one, but we both struggled and decided that dehydration was the likely culprit.

Basically, the path begins under a blanket of fat, leafy trees and puffy bushes (that's me in the photo at the entrance). No anemic eucalyptus or palm trees in these parts. About a mile into it, we were in the clear and running with the Tech campus to our right and nothing but fields of green to our left. Soon we ran up a small hill into another thicket of trees. The road was closed to traffic, and had my sister not been with me I would never have been able to enjoy such solitude. I’d worry something or someone could attack at any minute. A couple of miles later we encountered an elderly couple being pulled on bikes (or something with wheels) by huskies who appeared in training for the next Iditarod. That or they are fans of TV's “The Dog Whisperer” and were trying to tucker out their pets. With my breathing increasingly labored, I was grateful when I recognized the approaching scenic section of campus known as The Duck Pond. And it had water fountains -- hurray! After we replenished our parched bodies, soaked in sweat at this point, we headed up the side of The Drillfield, the campus focal point, and ran by my old dormitory and other familiar buildings made of unique building material known locally as “Hokie stone.” We cut through some construction, then up College Avenue to Draper Road and back to the library. It felt like we’d run for hours, but in fact we’d only been gone 50 minutes.

The next morning, we picked a trail closer to home -- beginning and ending at Blacksburg Middle School, where my sister works. This one meandered along an apartment-heavy housing development I knew very well from my college partying days. A misty rain kept things cool, but again the legs felt like lead. We put in closer to 3 miles, and again I was somewhat grateful when it ended. Tuesday morning, we instead went to a 6 a.m. Body Pump class where we lifted free weights to aerobics music. You really build up sweat and soreness. But the class went quickly, and I admit I intentionally lingered in the transitions to buy time before the dreaded lunges and shoulder exercises. Either I underestimated my strength (doubtful) or my weights (most assuredly) because I was only slightly sore the next day. I am, however, crediting those two crappy runs and Body Pump with the spectacular time I posted during my return to my routine run yesterday here in the Ranch. I finished five minutes faster and felt great, almost like I was having an out-of-body experience. Now, to only repeat the feat on Sunday during the AFC Half Marathon. A running friend warned me it’s going to be hot and humid on race day. Bring it on.