Today’s run had three critical ingredients for greatness: 1) run with a good buddy, 2) run somewhere new and 3) run a trail. I was not disappointed.

Nicole and I had a chance to run together in Winder this weekend, and rather than sticking with the well-known neighborhood path we drove out to Fort Yargo State Park for a run. Running an unknown trail by yourself is intimidating, but running an unknown trail with a best buddy? That’s an adventure.

We headed up a mountain biking trail, which was at times narrow and crowded with shrubs slapping at your arms, and at other times wide and open underneath a canopy of pine trees.

There was water to leap, puddles to dodge, hills to climb, roots to trip you (oops), cyclists to avoid and briar patches to entangle you when you jump out of a cyclist’s way.

There was something new around every corner, and plenty of good conversation to make me forget I was working so hard and just make me happy to be in the woods with a good friend.

Something about being out on that trail made us feel invigorated. And that’s a good thing, because we’re going to test ourselves later this fall with our first-ever mud/obstacle runs. I’m doing one later this month with a group of three guys (what was I thinking?) and then one in October with Nicole and two other gal pals. Let’s hope I like running in the mud as much as I liked today’s trail run. We’ll discover soon enough!