Safely Running in a New Environment

Welcome to a new week Drummers!  I hope all of your training is going good.  Mine has its up and its downs.  And I'm not just talking about the hills!  Last weekend I was out of my comfort zone.  I was in a different city and had to look up where I could run by our hotel.  Luckily it was only about 1/3 of a mile to the nearest trail system.  So, I figured that I would plan to hit the fitness center on Saturday and the trails on Sunday.

On Saturday I ran on the treadmill for a mile and did 4.5 miles on the bike to get some cross training in.  I was hoping to run longer, but there was something not right about it.  The dreadmill felt broke and I just felt worn out, but then did fine on the bike. You can see to the left that I'm struggling to smile as I start to do the bike.  I even wore my Lincoln Marathon shirt from last year for some inspiration.

On Sunday I took to the trails.  I had glanced at the trails and looked at which ones went which direction and even checked which ones I thought might be safer since I was out pretty early.  So, come morning I got up and got ready to face the unknown....slightly planned out.  As you can see I knew I was planning on running 8 miles so I wore my awesome (yes I am biased) Bioskin calf sleeves.  I'm really glad that I did considering the fact that the wind was a nightmare.  So, they helped me prevent injury during training and they also helped to shield my legs from the wind.  An unintended benefit, I'm sure.  Well, since I didn't quite know where I was going I only got in a 6.57 miles.  I had to keep checking the signs to make sure that I was going the way I had planned.  On the return it was much quicker.  It took me an hour to do the first 3 1/4 miles and just 39 minutes to do the return.  Still slower than I wanted to be, but I'll take it.  As I was running along I started enjoying the trail.  As you can see below there were a few bridges to run under.  I didn't take pictures of all of them, but there were a lot.  The second bridge picture (6th total) below was towards the end of the out and back.  It goes underground for around 100 meters.  It was pretty cool.  They have a sign right before you enter to not enter if there has been a heavy rain because the trail will be flooded.

Even the paper towel machine
knows that I'm Marathon training!

So, all of this got me thinking about safety.  I could have taken a few more precautions than I did to keep safe.  I'll lay out some of the guidelines that I followed, and a few that I didn't and I'm not admitting to what I did/did not follow.

• Be sure to have ID of some sort.  I wore my Road ID, that I almost forgot.  State issued ID will work if you can carry it.
• Carry a small amount of money ($10 or $20) just in case.
• If you are running in the dark be sure to wear reflective clothing, even if you are running somewhere there won't be cars.
• Another tip for running in the dark would be to wear a headlamp.
• Find a running partner or a running group to run with.  Even if you are out of town you can probably find one by contacting a local running outlet.
• Make sure someone knows the route you plan to run.  Even though I use the "Live Tracking" feature of my route tracker it is better that someone knows where you intend on running.
• Make sure you are prepared for the weather that you will be running in.  That means thermal gear for cold, waterproof jacket for rain, and such.

YOUR TURN TO INPUT: What tips do you have for safely running?

Don't forget, my Project Purple fundraiser is still going on and you can still win the Fitbit or the Runners Fuel Box.  You can enter below after donating to my Crowdrise at https://www.crowdrise.com/DreadmillDrummerPP2015.  You can check out the main post at http://bit.ly/PurpleGiveaway.

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Until next time, keep those beats coming!