It's May and that means Thursday night trail races with the Wissahickon Wanderers in the park. Always a great time and not just for the run. There is beer and food in the Valley Green restaurant after every run.

Over the years I have become friendly with many of the runners in this club because of these trail races and it was nice to see some familiar faces and catch up. I also bumped into English Mike of the Philly Runners who I think was there more for the beer than the racing.

The course this evening was an out and back on Cresheim Creek, a small tributary of the Wissahickon that meanders out towards Chestnut Hill and is the dividing line between CH and Mt. Airy. There were several creek crossings on the way out and the way back that made for a confusing and wet run. Normally you would be able to skip from rock to rock and stay dry but with all the rain you just had to jump into the calf deep water and avoid get twisted up on the submerged rocks.

I wasn't in the mood to kill myself racing so I laid back and followed a couple guys. It wasn't long before we missed some of the flour marking and went off course. Well not really off course, on course but going the wrong direction. This initiated a series of missteps and wrong turns that had us running longer than the actual course and crossing racers heading in the opposite direction. It was a short race so I was happy to run the extra distance. About 30 minutes.

I'll definitely be out there next week.