Sunset Run at Tandy Hills

The following is an actual conversation (although it may be remembered differently by other parties involved).  It took place yesterday evening after the conclusion of Chloe's Person-Centered Planning meeting.

Me: Is Cathy keeping the kids tonight?
Kelly: Yes.  What are you going to do?
Me: I don't know.  What are your plans?
Kelly: Jennifer and I are going to dinner.
Me: You and Jennifer?
Kelly: Yeah. . . .
Me: . . . .
Kelly: Why don't you go for a run?

So, excluded from dinner, I did decide to go for a run.  I hadn't run at Tandy Hills for a while.  I hadn't run at all for a while.  I was reminded of a few things.

1. When you've been running an average of 0 miles a day for a few weeks or months, you can't just pick up where you left off.
2. Even when you're hopelessly out of shape, it can be fun to pound out some miles on the trail.
3. If you go for a "sunset run" the implication is that at some point, it's going to get dark.  That's fine when you're running in the neighborhood, with plentiful street lights and other ambient light.  But in a park like Tandy Hills, where some trails are narrow, rocky, rutted, and/or tree covered, running in the dark is potentially hazardous.  Thankfully, I came home unscathed.
4. Tandy Hills isn't very big, but it's easy to get turned around in, especially in the dark.  I was never lost: there's the downtown skyline the west, the tall transmission towers to the east, and I-30 to the south, so you can't really get lost.  But sometimes I still don't know where I'm going there.

(The above image shamelessly lifted from the Durango Texas blog.  I hope he doesn't mind. . . .)

First run in the new VFF Treks

At long last, I finally got a pair of Vibram Five Fingers KSO Treks, the VFFs designed for trail running.  The sole is a tad thicker, and there are some lugs on the sole to help grip on the trails.  I tried them out on a short 5 miler at Tandy Hills Natural Area, which I wrote about a few months ago here.  I had run there before in my VFF Sprints, and was uncomfortable for much of the time on the rocky trials.  With the slightly thicker soles, the Treks made a big difference.  I still stepped carefully on the rocky sections, but my feet didn't end up feeling pulverized.  One side issue--any of you VFF wearers have an issue with grass and weeds getting stuck between your toes?  Some of the trails there are not well-travelled, and are a bit overgrown.  There were a few times I had to stop and pull big weeds out from between my toes.

This run was also a wake-up call: I do not run enough on trails and hills.  By necessity of schedule, most of my running is on flat streets and sidewalks in my neighborhood, which is fine if I'm running road races.  But to get ready for the trail runs I have coming up, I really should make more time for trails.  Tandy Hills offers some great short climbs for training.  I got to practice my "power hiking" there (i.e., I was too hot and tired to run up the steep, rocky trails, so I walked some of them!), as well as picking my way down those trails.

Nice Place to Run: Tandy Hills

Driving east from downtown Fort Worth, you may have noticed a swath of undeveloped land on the south side of I-30 between Beach and Oakland.  Most of that land is Tandy Hills Natural Area and I've found that it's a great place to run!  It may not look like much as you drive by, but its 160 natural acres have some really nice trails.

The Fort Worth Nature Center manages this land, and the Friends of Tandy Hills have been the park's greatest advocates.  They sponsor Prairie Fest every spring (with Brave Combo playing live!), publish a book of wildflowers at the park, and generally promote conservation and preservation of this Fort Worth gem.

The trails vary from wide and smooth to steep and rocky to narrow and overgrown to sketchy.  The terrain provides some short, challenging, ascents/descents.  There aren't too many flat stretches.  I'm not a trail running expert, but I was excited about the variety of trail types this little park took me through.  And though the park isn't huge, much of the time your vision is limited only to trees and trails and grass, so (if you can tune out the roar of traffic on I-30), it's very easy to imagine you are in the middle of nowhere, or, as the Friends of Tandy Hills want us to imagine, that we are in Fort Worth when it was open prairie, before it was settled.

The main entrance to the park is at the corner of View Street and Tandy, where there is a grassy area with paved walkways and benches.  This is the location of Prairie Fest.  I started near some picnic tables near the corner of Meadowbrook and Chelsea.  I ran down a sort of arm of the park, between two neighborhoods, then went on a sort of clockwise loop, with a couple of short out and backs as I explored other trails.  My total distance (per my Garmin) was 5.88 miles, and, aside from the out and backs, I did not repeat trails.  I could easily see doing a few loops here and not getting bored.

For me Tandy Hills's greatest asset is proximity to my home, just a few minutes' drive.  But for the quality and variety of trails, the seclusion it offers so close to the heart of the city, and the views of downtown Fort Worth, this park is worth a visit for any trail runner, casual hiker, or wildflower lover.