Trail Run #5: Pre's (Prefontaine) Trail

Today I did my fifth "trail" run. I don't consider these quite as "trail" as what we've been doing to date, but it was a good one for today to be a bit easier on my knees. I ran the full Pre's Trail over at Alton Baker park. This is a set of trails that in total cover 4 miles of almost completely flat bark covered trails. Perfect for today. Drove over to Alton Baker with my wife and kids, and they went for a walk and checked out the ducks, etc. while I did the run. It went pretty well, and I did my longest sustained chunk of running to date at about 11 minutes. Total run was 40 or 41 minutes. Total time was 45 minutes, but with about half a mile to go, I stopped running right near Autzen Stadium and some folks asked if I was done running. I said no, but that I was taking a break (I could tell they wanted a picture). So, I said yes to taking their picture (with a "Pre's Trail" sign in it of course). Turns out they were from Ohio and were visiting. I'm not as in awe of the whole Prefontaine thing as folks who are in the running community, so seeing all this is somewhat amusing to me (had already seen it once with some others at the beginning of my run). I spoke to them for a while, as they asked about Eugene and so on. We got to talking about how I'd moved from California, and they inquired about whether I missed the sun and beaches, etc. I said I missed surfing (true!), but didn't miss the heat, the people in general (people in Oregon are far friendly in general), love the environmental feel of Eugene, etc. The mom (I presume) said she wanted to move to Eugene, but didn't sound like they could or something (I was getting itchy to finish up my run, so I was trying to bring the conversation to a close politely at this point). Anyway, finished talking to them and then finished up the run. Found my wife and kids, and walked a bit more, then headed home. Overall, happy with my run, especially my longer stint, and clearly I can run faster when it's all flat. But, this was a much less interesting run for me, I really do prefer the singletrack trails of Ridgeline so far. It's a good option to have though. I also want to check out the Rexius loop as another flat option for when it's needed/desired.