How To Choose A Running Trail Video

Choosing a running trail offers a whole new area of possibilities. Learn how to choose a running trail in this video.

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Check out local parks
Consult guidebooks & maps
Know your personal limitations

About this Author

Yishail Horowitz has been adventure racing for about five years. He produced the Central Coast Adventure Challenge in San Louis Obispo, California, as well as, the Pine Mountain Pull-Down, a bouldering competition in Ventura, California. Yishail is also the course designer for many adventure series races in California.

YISHAI HOROWITZ: Hello. I'm Yishai Horowitz and today we're going to be talking about how to choose a trail running trail. So, depending where you live, look for those parks, state parks, national parks, county parks, city parks, whatever kind of parks. Lot of them have really nice trails to run on. Another resource you can do is get a map of the local area or the area that you're interested in running, and these maps generally have trails on them. For the beginning trail runners out there, you want to look for something that's kind of flat-leveled and not a lot of rocks. Be careful for those, they can really twist your ankles up, especially if you're not used to trail running, you're not going to know what to expect. So you want to look for those nice, smooth trails. Also, for beginning trail runners, start it on the fire roads. It's pretty similar to road running, but you have to use your head a little bit more, because there are some rocks. There's a few more obstacles than there'd be on a regular road. If you want to step it up a notch, go for a little bit more of a rugged trail, something with rocks, some more water rets, things like that. With that, you really need to be on your game, making sure that your foot placement is proper and you're not going to twist your ankle, break your foot, something like that. Before you go out and run on a trail, you want to make sure that the distances of the trail that you've chosen are what you're capable of doing. So look on those maps, like was saying before and see if there's an easy escape after five miles or are you forced to do the entire 10-mile loop. So one of the important issue about choosing the trail is that check the signs at the trail heads. See if there's any current dangers that might be there. Definitely check those out before you go and know what you're getting into.

How to Choose a Running Trail Video

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