Institute Woods adventure

For those of you who haven’t been to Princeton to experience this yourself, let me tell you that there is nothing quite like spending your morning trotting along the paths of the beautiful Institute Woods…

…feeling like Einstein (or as close to feeling like Einstein as I’ll ever be) until BAM!!

Until some stupid, very non-Einstein-like stone bites you in the foot causing you to eat shit in absolutely royal fashion – flying head over tea kettle and rolling down the, what used to be beautiful but now just seems to be crazy muddy, running trail.

Thanks to my childhood I am still very good at falling. After extracting myself from the slimy mess I was in, it was clear that (most importantly) there were no eye witnesses and no harm was done aside from soiling my pretty white running skirt (why the hell would anyone buy sell a white running skirt anyway?!?!). The Garmin was caked in muck and I had a few very minor scratches, but no permanent physical damage.

(Note: these pictures really do not do justice to the mess that I was. Second note: yes, my feet really are that small; no, it isn’t an artifact of the angle at which the picture was taken.)

However, after that, I really couldn’t quite reestablish that mental comparison between Einstein and myself.

I wonder how many times Einstein ate shit in his woods. I wonder if Einstein knew how to fall. I wonder what happened to his hair-do if he did fall.

And that’s the kind of crap that was running though my head as I finished up the run and headed back to the car. Like I said, there isn’t anything quite like it. Sigh…

7/13/13

4.1 miles

42 min

Trail run through the Institute Woods.

My new friend Beth told me about this place last weekend during our hike on Saturday. She is quite knowledgeable when it comes to all things related to Princeton biking and running/hiking. And she was awesome enough to send me a map to the trail starting points for the Institute Woods and a map of the best way to bike to school across scary Route 1 (this is a second mission for the weekend so stay tuned).

(P.S. If she keeps this up she’s going to be hearing from/seeing me way more than she ever hoped to!)

So, for the IW, I chose the most idiot-proof approach (for justification of this decision see above) for this first exploration and started just off of Mercer Rd. Thank you Beth!! 🙂

Warm and humid (80s x2) but it was shaded and very pleasant. There were too many mosquitoes in some parts thanks to the big mud pools spanning the width of the trail (awesome work flash floods of central NJ), but they certainly weren’t everywhere. The trail was well kept and a very reasonable running surface for anyone with half a brain and coordination enough to put one foot in front of the other… The scenery was super pleasant and there were many winding trails to follow. I stuck to doing a bunch of out-and-back routes as to not get stuck in an infinite loop. Not that the events of the day suggest that I would do that sort of thing…

Threads: Nike tank, Nike running skirt and shorty socks.

Treads: Mizuno Wave Creation 11

Has anyone had a run with exciting or unpredictable surprises?