A new trail for me.....

On Monday I was looking for a new area to run so Kevin suggested that we head to Bloomer Park.  Believe it or not, I've lived in the area for many years and have never been to Bloomer.  Wow, was I missing something!  This park is incredible!

We decided to meet at the Onyx Ice Arena which many bikers and runners park in order to get onto the Clinton River Trail or the Macomb Orchard Trail.  From the Clinton River trail, you take that a short distance(a little over a mile) until you get to the park trails.

The Clinton River Trail

Bridge over the river

The Clinton River

While the river looks down here, it has been quite high earlier in the year.  We found that out later on in our run.  As we made our way into the park, we hit up some technical, hilly trails.  Sorry for the blurriness but it's the best I could get running uphill and it was a shaded area.  The trail is actually bike trails but they also make great running trails.

Some technical hills

As we made our way into the park more, you can see that the local high schools do their cross country training here as noted by the white chalk line.  It's set up for the kids to follow as they run.  There are also numerous trail races here.  Perhaps I'll do one sometime.

Follow the white line!

The park also has a velodrome!  You can't say that many parks have these things.  They are kind of specialized.

Velodrome

I'm sure most of you know what this is, but for those that don't, it's a bike track designed for fixed gear bikes.  As you can see the track has steep banks so you can get some speed going on them.  If you want to learn more about this particular one, go HERE for more information.

After we took a look at the velodrome, we took back to the trails.  There are some really fun parts in the park.

A view of the switchbacks you can bike/run

Cool swamp

As we were running, we got next to the Clinton River and were following the trails.  It was one of the nicer trails I've been on but was quite overgrown in area.

Clinton River

As you can see below, there were some trees down but someone made a bridge so the trees didn't stop us.  We got a bit lost after this though, as the trail just came to an end.  We did a back track and really ran off trail for maybe 1/4-1/2 mile before getting back on the trails again.  The trails in this part seemed to be washed away from when the river was higher but we found our way back

Who doesn't want to run this homemade bridge connected to a tree?

 Of course, that was after a few more downed trees we needed to pass over, or in this case, under!

Kevin making a drop under the tree.

Back to the bridge

Here's a look at our route:

Clinton River Trail and Bloomer Park Trails

Of course, since you're reading this, we made it back alive to enjoy another day at the trails.  I made my way home and got out of my muddy, wet trail shoes.  No concern for pace with the goal to just get nine miles in.  It was a good run!

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Complete rest day on the schedule....yea!

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Have a great day and....Keep Running!!!!