Yippee! The Devou Park trails are open again.
After a long winter’s nap, the trails reopened earlier this month, allowing runners and bicyclists to get back to nature.
Well, most of the time. The trails remain responsive to the variances of weather, so Sunday was not a good day. Rain and people biking and running are not nice for dirt trails through the woods.
Knowing that, I still wanted to experience my first true trail run of the year. So I did something I have never done before: take on a two-run day. After nine miles training Saturday morning with the Tri State Running Company — cutting short the planned run of 13 miles because I’m on a taper for next week’s Derby Half-Marathon in Louisville — I decided to head up to the trails Saturday evening for a nice, easy loop of about four miles.
So much for a taper – running fewer miles as race day nears – but hey, the trails beckoned.
On this run, Emily Leising of Independence joined me. She also brought along her camera, so any pictures you see with this column are hers.
“I’m not a typical ‘trail runner,’” she said. “I do prefer to run the roads. But it’s not because trails are harder, or more humbling. I like hills.”
Now, Emily is a far faster and stronger runner, but she took it easy on me, keeping steady with my slow pace and my recurring need to hike instead of run. (One of the nice things about trails is that when it’s too tough to run, one doesn’t have to walk, but can hike.) Of course, oftentimes she did fly down the trails to get ahead and snap a few pictures.
When you look at the pictures, realize this: The trails at Devou Park were planned, built, and are maintained by volunteers, who either did the work themselves or raised enough money to hire professional trail builders. Yep, that’s right. From laying out the trails, to keeping them clear, to ensuring they are safe for both the people who use them and for the animals that live in the woods, it’s all done by people who do it out of love for the activities.
And most of them are bicycle riders, which is why the Devou Trails are geared toward and mainly used by bicyclists. The banked switchbacks, the hills, the rocks left in the trails, and the ups and downs around and between the trees are all part of trail bicycle riding. But they don’t mind us runners getting up there with them. We’re both friendly groups who enjoy nature and sharing the trails. Runners such as myself enjoy the cooler air and shade that the woods provide during the hot, sticky summer months.
It started back in 2003, when a group of natural trail surface advocates met with Covington officials and members of the Devou Park Advisory Board to plan the trails. Groundbreaking took place in 2008. The trails opened the next year.
Since then, the trails have expanded and continue to grow. Starting in June 2012, the Cincinnati Off-Road Alliance and the Kentucky Mountain Bike Association set up a partnership with the International Mountain Bike Association, a collaboration focused on improved management and advocacy for natural surface trails across the region. They adopted one name: the Greater Cincinnati Off-Road Alliance.
In addition to having trail upkeep days during the year, the alliance also sponsors races during the year. This Saturday, for instance, is the second annual Spring Fling, in which the Devou Park Trail Collective is joining with the Lewisburg Neighborhood Association and Keep Covington Beautiful to celebrate the trail maintenance work done over the winter. The event starts at 9 a.m. and will include some general cleanup of the trails and the trailhead. Later, they’ll have a cookout, trail runs, hikes and bike rides.
The trailhead, which provides access to the trail, is near the gravel lot by the baseball diamond at the bottom of Sleepy Hollow Road, just after the underpass by the railroad tracks before you reach Ludlow. A small uphill trail to the south takes you to a gravel road, which goes up to the old incinerator. Walk around the fence and the trail begins by the kiosk, which has a map of the completed and proposed trails.
But beware, the first mile or so of the trail is a steep, uphill climb. My calculations show that from a start of about 500 feet above sea level, it rises to 750 feet by the first mile. Another 50-to-75-foot rise occurs along the rest of the trails, which are often up and down for the most part.
And despite the amazing views – you can see the Ohio River at certain points, along with some city views – you do have to watch where you are going. Sometimes, you’ll be so entranced with the beauty of it all, from the trees to the wildlife to the sky, you’ll wind up looking at that sky from flat on your back. Or with your nose pressed firmly into the ground.
Because while running the trails, you will fall. You’ll take too long a step, misjudge that hole, overlook that root in the ground, or slip on the mud. Just get back up, dust yourself off, and keep going.
Emily said Devou’s trails offer both the beauty and the inherent danger of running in the woods. It’s a mixed blessing, she said.
“You have to pay so much attention to where your feet are going that you’re missing the point of being on a trail — the beauty and peace of being tucked away in a pocket of nature,” she said.
“The Devou trails, despite having rock features for (mountain trail bicycle) challenges, are smooth enough that you can get the chance to look up and around you and enjoy what you’re doing. To me, that should be an important part of trail running.”
Paul Long writes weekly for the NKyTribune about running and runners. For his daily running stories, follow him at dailymile.com or on Twitter @Pogue57