Trail Running

Iowa is sometimes a challenging state to find a good, mind-stimulating exercise arena. Granted, there are days when I am simply working on flat speed and a good track is easy to find and better suited for training. However, when I'm working on endurance and hills, I need something to keep me mentally engaged.

A great trail I recently discovered is the Coralville Reservoir Trail, located in Coralville, IA. It's incredibly hard to find the address so I've taken the liberty to copy and paste it here from www.alltrails.com (great site for finding new paths):

3955 West Overlook Rd NE, Iowa City, IA 52240

I wasn't sure what to expect, except that the reviews listed it as a 4.4 mile looping trail with moderate hills. Indeed, for this area, it was a moderate difference in elevation. The only drawback was the complexity of the trails. It was truly a looping trail, but in the sense that there were many loops. Fortunately there are plenty of trail markers to let you know where you are. In fact there are a lot of different trail distractions, such as this "sculpture" that looks like a wooden igloo about a half mile in.

You'll definitely want to make sure your ankles and feet are up for this. I recommend some solid trail shoes before going out here, and be prepared for elevation changes.

Overall, I'd say this was a great trail. If you end up running ALL the paths, you'll also run into "trail training," stations along the way that let you work on muscles with pull up, pushups, climbing, etc. If you are in the Iowa City/Coralville area, I definitely recommend checking it out.