Thursday, June 17, 2010

Apalachee Regional Park Trail is ready when you are

At this time of year, here is what you need to know about pavement.

Asphalt is black. The blacker it is, the better it is at absorbing all the energy that the sun shines on it in the form of visible light. It can only give up that energy as infrared radiation. Heat. By the late afternoon or early evening any blacktopped road you run on is going to be a grill. A long, hard grill. As if the air wasn't warm enough already.

Which is just another reason why I like to get off the pavement. Thanks to the Leon County Division of Parks and Recreation, we have another place to run off pavement this summer. The Apalachee Regional Park Trail is open for running, fully repaired after the winter storms, and even better than it was last cross-country season.

The directions to the trail haven't changed since last year. The sign to the parking area, set up during the 2009 FSU Invitational, is still there.


The sign directs you north through a gate and on a road through the woods.


The road emerges through the woods in Field #2. One thing that you'll immediately notice in Field #2 is hundreds of feet of log fencing that has been built since last year. The fencing is rustic and discourages people from driving on the trail. The parking area for the trail is on the left as soon as you come out into Field #2. The road continues ahead to Seminole Radio Control Airfield. Stay away from Seminole RCA! There are plenty of places to run out here; the air field is not one of them.


Once parked, walk to the north end of Field #2 and then turn left to go through the oak hammock and west into Field #1. The starting line is at the far west end of Field #1. The course heads east from the starting line, back toward the oak hammock. In this view of the course from the starting line, you can see from the grass clippings that the starting straightaway was recently mowed.


Last year at this time if you were to pause 200m from the start in the middle of Field #1 and look down, you wouldn't see a lot of grass. You would probably see deer prints, though, because the ground between the scant blades was soft enough to take tracks. This year the grass is growing thick and the ground is firm.


About 400m from the starting line you reach the oak hammock between Field #1 and Field #2. The course underneath the oaks has been surfaced with crushed oyster shell. This tends to wash away when it rains, so the Leon County Division of Parks and Recreation has placed a low ditch at the top of the oyster shell to catch water and carry it north. We'll see how well this works. The ditch isn't much of an obstacle, and it's certainly less of an obstacle than the gullies that rainstorms erode in the oyster shell.


In Field #2, the course runs along the treeline on the north edge of the field.


At the east end of Field #2, the course leaves the grass for a road surfaced with crushed oyster shell.


The road takes you on a dike that holds back a "moat" of water, which you can see on your right. Yes, the water is seepage from the old landfill. The green stuff floating on the surface doesn't look pretty, but it's only duckweed. The water isn't going to jump out of the canal and poison you, though, so as long as you resist the urge to drink it or swim in it you should be perfectly fine.



The dike and the course make a 90-degree turn to the right, after which the course leaves the dike. On the two-loop five-kilometer course, the first time by here you stay to the right and cross Field #3 to head to the Piney Woods. The second time by this point, you make a hairpin turn to the left to head directly into the Jungle.


Leaving the dike, on the first loop the course crosses Field #3. Like the other fields, Field #3 was a cow pasture before Leon County bought the land. Over the last couple of decades, the north end of Field #3 has grown up to become the Piney Woods.


After crossing the open part of Field #3, the course winds first north and then south through the Piney Woods.


Through the Piney Woods, the course is firm, weed-free, and shady. Turning to the south, the trail takes you out of the trees and back into the open part of Field #3.


Shortly after leaving the Piney Woods, the trail takes you through an old gully, the Dip. Watch you step going in and out of the Dip, especially if you're running in a group.


I can never resist taking a picture of the course immediately following the dip. For a few yards, the trail follows the oak-canopied rim of Field #3.


Leaving Field #3, the course turns right to descend into the Jungle. The course here has been covered with crushed oyster shell. This washed away during the winter, but the Leon County Division of Parks and Recreation has replaced the surface and it is as good as ever.


Near the 1600m mark, the Corbin Trail is a north-south shortcut for spectators and coaches. The Corbin Trail runs between the 1600m mark and the 3200m mark (or the "mile" and the "two-mile" as us Old Guys call them).


Beyond the 1600m mark, the course traverses a causeway through a swamp. Some people refer to the causeway as the first bridge. The swamp gets less savory names; "Silkwood" is the least impolite of them. The causeway is covered with crushed oyster shell, a better surface than some tracks.


After the causeway, the trail is a wide, well-drained path winding through the woods.


To the left of the course immediately following the causeway, the Braman Trail is a shortcut for spectators and coaches that runs from the finish area to a point about 800m from the finish. Walking up and down the Braman Trail, you can see the start, the finish, and three other stages of a five-kilometer race.


The course after the causeway isn't all smooth sailing. There are about three "moguls," dips in the trail left by old waterways.


The second bridge (if the causeway is the first bridge) washed out once during the fall and again during the winter. This time the County Division of Parks and Recreation rebuilt it for a flood.


The course steadily climbs after the second bridge, finally reaching the base of the Wall--a climb flatlanders only speak of in whispers. Actually, as hills in Tallahassee go it's not that impressive, but try telling that to a runner from Tampa.


At the top of the Wall the course returns to Field #1. The county has put a ditch here to keep water from flowing down the Wall and stripping it of oyster shell. The first time around, the five-kilometer course goes straight ahead to the south edge of the field. At the end of the second loop, the course turns sharply to the left to follow the north edge of the field.


At the end of the second loop the course follows the winding north edge of Field #1 to cover the last 400m to the finish line.


Midway through the last time across Field #1 a warm-up trail forks to the left, but the course itself keeps to the right, heading straight ahead to the finish line at the oak hammock.


The finish line is between the trees in the oak hammock. The line itself is at the tree on the right.


That was the state of the cross-country course at the Apalachee Regional Park Trail on 16 June 2010. There aren't any races scheduled there before October, but there's nothing to prevent you from going out there for a run. It'll be better than the pavement, even if it isn't exactly cool.

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Posted by Herb Wills at 1:00 AM
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