Sunday morning at 8am I was in wave 7 for the start of the Dahlgren Trail Half-Marathon. The tracks only continue a couple of hundred yards, and for the rest of the 6½ miles this was very pleasant running indeed. The landscape is entirely rural, mostly through woods, with only two or three places intersected by country lanes. Most of the sleepers (ties) must have been removed, although in some sections of the trail they were simply rotting away by themselves. The grade was not quite as level as I’d expected, although I might have been imagining it to be mostly a gentle uphill climb on the way out and continuing gently uphill on the way back. I ran a 9:18 pace and finished at 2:02:08, taking home my first ever road race prize as I was 2nd out of 4 (!) men over 60. (I was also 24th of 48 men over 40.)

Here’s the website of the trail preservation group: http://www.friendsdrht.org/DRHT_TrailInfo.htm