Quabbin Trails

Time: 64:40
Distance: 10 mi.
Map (approximate)



Near the north west corner of the Quabbin Reservoir in Shutesbury there are a few miles of bicycle access trails. While I had heard of these before, I have never explored them. Without knowing them at all, an out-and-back run was in order, but I could have easily gone farther and gotten lost, which would have been nice. The trails are fairly wide and well-maintained in most areas and, for some reason, are in some places listed as real roads on Google Maps. I took New Boston Rd. from Cooleyville Rd. up to Rockwell Hill Rd. and then came back, according to this MA DCR map.

I ran decently hard out in 34:00 and then hammered back in around 30:00. Honestly, this could easily have been over 10 miles.

Pratt Corner Loop

Time: 126:15
Distance: 19.5 mi.
Map

"The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat." - Bill Squires

Back up to the two hour mark with a long run through Amherst, Pelham, Shutesbury, Leverett on the roads the run the periphery of Amethyst Brook. The first half of this run is almost relentlessly uphill--never super steep but almost no steps down and coming back down on Pratt Corner was a bit dicey in sections as the dirt sections still had a lot of snow on them so despite a pretty good effort the whole way it wasn't too fast. The pounding coming down wasn't terrible, but my legs started to get pretty tired at 90 minutes. I hit 2 hours exactly at the one mile mark from home on Old Farm Road and ran the last mile in 6:15.


Elevation of the first 8 miles of the run