It was near the final kilometer of the race that I imagined my intestine being twisted and squeezed.
Differing degrees of pain had dug in throughout my body like knives. Stomach, ankles, thighs, collar — they all were in flames.
With every well-paced gallop, the potential for puking up a caramel apple I ate the night before grew stronger and stronger. It was apparent that I wasn't in the great shape I had imagined.
My legs and arms felt heavy as I trudged along the nearly four-mile-long Northern Tier Trail, which winds itself through the northern borders of East Lansing. The 10-foot-wide paved trail is designed for runners and cyclists alike and connects many of the city's parks.
My first experience on the trail came one cold Monday morning when I took my bike out for a ride. At 10 a.m., it was nearly empty — almost spooky in its desolation. In the half hour it took me to complete the entire trail and all of its offshoots, I only came across a handful of people, including just one other on a bicycle. The company I did have came from scores of sparrows and robins that tweeted in the brush lining the trail.
The smooth pavement and emerald, manicured grass alongside the trail was in stark contrast to the more natural condition of Lansing's River Trail, which I had visited a week before.
On Lansing's trail, I came across rabbits and a family of whitetail deer. On the Northern Tier Trail, my biggest obstacles were puffy clumps of decomposing grass clippings left behind by a mulching lawn mower.
The trail passes through playgrounds and by basketball courts, over wooden bridges and into the upscale Abbott Parkside neighborhood. It has numerous trail heads, including ones sprouting out from the East Lansing Soccer Complex and another from the Family Aquatic Center, which makes the trail accessible to residents living in many areas of northern East Lansing.
Unfortunately, the trail's relatively short length, abundant jumping-on points and intersections at Abbott and Lake Lansing roads make the trail frustrating for cyclists who'd like to maintain a decent pace.
Since the Northern Tier Trail seemed much more practical for runners, I caught up with Georgette Vlangos, an East Lansing resident who lives in the Northern Tier and said she uses the trail "every day religiously."
The sweat-soaked, ear-phoned MSU alumna said she runs five to nine miles a day. "People are friendly on (the trail)," Vlangos said. "It's safe. You'll see police patrolling here all the time on bikes."
Vlangos was nowhere in sight when I returned to the trail six days later on an even colder morning. The course, once barren and quiet, now reverberated from the nearly 400 feet simultaneously rushing along it. Perhaps inspired by Vlangos, I had registered in the third annual East Lansing Pumpkin Trot 5K run. Running 5 kilometers is simply a nonstop, full-impact pain for someone not used to it. It's a different pain. It's a full-bodied pain. It's the kind of pain where you don't notice that your toenail has sliced into a neighboring toe and saturated your sock with blood.
By the first mile, I felt winded. By the second mile, I was seriously debating the rationale behind the decision to run in the first place. By the third mile, I was talking out loud, yelling at myself to continue the race.
Then, after 5 kilometers or about 3.1 miles of keeping pace with a few other racers, I was in the final stretch, yearning for the sweet finish-line release.
I completed the course in 26 minutes and 8 seconds in 87th place out of 189, alongside a man old enough to be my grandfather (who, dammit, pulled ahead of me in the final steps).
I had quickly learned that riding a bicycle and running are two very different things. It was a humbling experience on the Northern Tier Trail, and judging by the pain emanating from the lower regions of my body, not one I'll be having again for quite a while.
