Monday, July 03, 2006

All American Trail

I've been wanting to run this trail since it opened up about a month or two ago. The All American (AA) Trail, currently 7 miles long, follows the perimeter boundary of Fort Bragg through North Carolina's Sandhills Region. So far, only phase 1 of this trail is completed. I believe there are four phases in constructing this trail, which is suppose to circumnavigate the entire boundary of Fort Bragg. That will be a pretty good run. As you can see above the trail has a good size pathway (about 10-15 ft wide). The trail also has markers at each half mile. Oh, I forgot to mention that the trail has some rolling hills.

I couldn't asked for a better day to hit the trail. Breezy, low-80s, and not too humid on an Independence holiday. It was a perfect day to run easy and enjoy the beauty of nature. Before I stepped off I looked around trying to figure out what was wrong with the picture. The scenery was awesome, except that there was not a single runner, walker, hiker, or cyclist in sight. I made a bet with myself that there wouldn't be a single person on the trail. The great thing about this trail is the sighting of different species of plants and trees. It also crosses a couple creeks along the way. I couldn't remember the last time I enjoyed the sounds of nature. It didn't matter anymore because today's run was filled with it. The sound of running water from the creeks, Red Cockaded Woodpeckers pecking, trees blowing, birds chirping, and the smooth strides from my Saucony Grid Tangents made my run worthwhile. I initially planned to run 4.5M out and back. When I got to the 4.5M marker I decided to run another half mile to make it 10 for the day. I ended up winning my bet. There was not a single person on the trail. The only living creature I saw on the run was a little wabbit.

Today's Run: 1:09:02

4 comments:

marappu said...

Nice trail, Wayne. That's what I miss about the states. By the way, if you get a chance, run at Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield Park. Sixteen miles of trails that take you by some open battlefields. Kind of spooky but great running.

Brooke said...

Awesome trail!! Supposedly there are some paved trails here in Jacksonville, but I have yet to find them. Maybe I need to make a trip over to Bragg.

Wayne said...

Fred - I actually did run some of the trails at Kennesaw Mountain last year when I was at Ft Gordon, GA for school. My class did a staff ride and battle analysis of Kennesaw. I drove down the following Sat. and ran with a running club that meets at the visitor's center. Yeah, it was spooky running through the battlefields.

jkrunning - Bragg does have some nice trails. It's also clean and well-maintained. I've been to Jacksonville but have not run there. The only place I've ran on coastal Carolina is Surf City and Carolina Beach.

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to running this on
Saturday!