Running From the Pushed-Down-Signpost All The Way To The Giant-Lego-Blocks

   Someone who is near and dear to me suggested very

One tree kind of picked
its own direction.

recently that I had been "slacking on the blog lately". Now, she didn't make reference to which blog I'd been slacking on but I've clearly been slacking on both of them, so she was totally correct, regardless.
   In light of this, and also because I have been a little stir-crazy lately, I decided to hit the trails yesterday. What made this somewhat different, however, was that I was actually planning on running, of all things!
   I've had this idea for a while now of heading to Komoka Provincial Park and running end-to-end on the portion of the Thames Valley Trail which bisects it. I can't tell you how many times I've

Starting point- The-Pushed-Down-
Signpost

been on this trail (literally, I can't, I go on it all the time) and it has a good mixture of terrain for trail-running. 
   My plan was to start at the old Oxford Street entrance and run all the way to where the trail meets Gideon Drive. I wanted to time myself and use that as kind of a benchmark for future, similar runs. Hopefully, the idea would be to run a little faster each time!
   I parked in the main parking lot at Komoka and slid $5.25 worth of change into the parking machine. This gave me two hours of parking and I thought to myself that there was no way I'd take two hours. I was almost wrong...
   Parking where I did meant that I would need to hike along the trail to the Oxford Street entrance. This gave me an opportunity to warm up. Once I got there, I started up my Garmin and started to run!
   

Ending up at The-Giant-Lego-Blocks

Okay, I'm not really sure that "run" isn't kind of misleading in this particular case. It could be that "shuffle" or "trot" are more accurate, hard to tell. Basically, I was doing whatever it is when walking stops being walking.
   Part of my plan, as well, was not to stop. Relentless Forward Motion! For the most part, I accomplished this---stopped once to fidget with a stubborn water bottle and one other time for about twenty seconds at the end of a steep climb. All in all, I was happy with that part of it.

   At the Oxford end of things, there's an old frame for what used to be a park sign which is now lying on its side, on top the underbrush. At the Gideon end of things, there are several concrete blocks

Upside-down but you can still read it

(which look exactly like Lego) positioned along the entrance, I'm sure to discourage motorized vehicles from entering. I

The Steps--you may recognize them

used both of these as my start and ending points. When I was done and sitting on one of those concrete blocks, I checked my Garmin. The "run" had taken me almost 52 minutes and I had only gone 4.1K! By the time I hiked back to where the car was, I had almost used up my two hours of parking. On streets, that would be a horrendous time but I had no problem reminding myself that I'm slowly working my way back into things and that trail-running is a whole different animal. Next time out---faster.

A great day to be in the forest!