TIMBER TRAILS 5K (Grand Ledge - 2020 - Husband Run During Injury)
Jason and Luke came to my rescue again with my healing toe for the Timber Trails 5K in Grand Ledge. Luke took my place this time. The plan was to register Jason the day of the run. Unfortunately, we were told onsite registration had closed just minutes before we got there. The run had an open start from 9:00am to 10:45am. We arrived at 10:00am. Jason ran anyway without an official number. Luke and Jason took off together into the woods. It was a perfect Fall day with beautiful scenery. It was Jason’s first trail run. The colors of the trees were amazing. I went for a walk with the kids and Corky. We followed their course until we found a path that went down wooden steps to water. It looked really cool. We had never been to Fitzgerald Park before. It is the most beautiful park I have been to in all my Michigan trail running. The Grand River winds through it. You can take trails that are abundant with sedimentary rock formations. The sedimentary rocks blew me and the kids away. It was awesome. Some of the formations made small caves that we went in. We found an old railway going over the river that made for great photography images. We were so engrossed in our hike we almost didn’t make it back to the finish in time for Jason and Luke. I am so glad I messaged them to see where they were before it was too late.
Luke finished before Jason. We stayed with him and got water and candy. They also gave us navy Eaton County face masks. There was only one staff member when the boys finished compared to three when we checked in. The timing man was very nice and told me he would adjust Luke’s age and name for their official results. Jason said the trails felt amazing on his knees. We got extra candy for being the last participants to leave. The course was consistently hilly, had wooden bridges, scenic views and curved around frisbee golf holes.
We took Jason and Luke back down the sedimentary rock path after they finished. It was too amazing not to show them. Corky took a break in the car for the second round of hiking. My toe felt fine with all the walking, which I was very happy about. We crossed the Sandstone Creek. Something snagged Luke and he had a reaction that caused him to go into an itching fit on his arm. I always carry Benadryl with me. That helped calm down his reaction.
We met an awesome frisbee golfer on our way out named John and talked with him for awhile. I’ve always been interested in Frisbee Golf because I played a lot of frisbee as a kid but was never into golf. We told John we would contact him to play when we were back in the Lansing area. I got his contact info. Sometimes you just hit it off with people and connect on a lot of things un-expectedly.
Downtown Grand Ledge was surrounded by nature. The bridge over the Grand River next to Fitzgerald Field was really cool. I walked to the middle of it to get pictures. They have a small water tower on a hill that put it high above the city. It looked epic. They have a huge river front park with an amphitheater along the boardwalk. Jaycee park was so calming to walk through. Grand Ledge has a great little downtown with lots of flowers, murals, bright paint and neat maps. We enjoyed neighborhood Halloween decorations on our way home.
Things I take away from the Timber Trails 5K are:
1. Finding one of the prettiest parks in Michigan so close to home. The sandstone rocks were something out of a museum. I love nature trails with water.
2. The very kind run staff. The registration woman told us to take as much of the leftover candy, water and hand sanitizer as we wanted. She was great to talk to and very helpful. The timing staff were extremely helpful with our situation.
3. The awesome wooden age group medals that they mailed out to Luke the week following the race. I loved that he got such a cool age group medal. It was perfect based on the run’s nature setting.
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