The Tridge of a Walk

“Eddie are you ready to go?” Kat yells across the condo. “In a few minutes everyone will be here for our day of training.”

“Yeah, I am almost ready, I have both walking and water shoes.”

“Good. I can’t wait for today. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

There’s a knock on the door.

Opening it she says, “welcome, welcome, we are almost ready. Have a seat.”

“Thanks. I saw Carl pull up. I am sure that Johann isn’t too far behind. Have you heard from AJ?” Vicki asks her.

“Yes, she is going to meet us up there. We have about a two-hour drive ahead of us. I am looking forward to kayaking.”

Carl knocks and walks in with Anna, “Howdy! We are here. Let the fun begin!”

Anna smiles, “good morning!”

“Good morning!” Eddie greets them as he comes out of the bedroom.

Gathering around the pub style table in the kitchen, “Ok, so we take Carl’s van, and we’ll rent the kayaks when we get up there. First we will go out for a walk. Gotta see the Tridge from both on it and below it,” Eddie tells them.

“Knock, knock,” Johann says as he opens the door.

Kat answers him, “we’re in the kitchen.”

“We are all here now. Let’s get moving, we have a bit of a drive ahead of us,” Carl announces.

They all walk out to his van, put their things in the back and hop in with the guys at the front seats of the van and the women behind them. This works out for each group to chat and not have to holler over the others.

Kat says to Anna and Vicki, “I have been looking up where all we want to go and see when we do the race in Nashville. It really depends on how many days we are there ahead of and after the race. Some things are open only on certain days.”

“I know that I want to go to the Grand Ole Opry and ride on the General Jackson. Other than that, I am pretty open to everything else,” Vicki answers.

Anna adds in, “I have been using TripTaker and have a whole bunch of places saved for us to go to. It includes restaurants and touristy stuff.”

“Perfect, can you share that with us?” Kat asks.

“Yes, I can.”

“Awesome. I will share my TrailTrailsTrails with you guys so that we know where we are going to walk in Nashville and be aware of our training routes,” Vicki says.

Meanwhile, up front in the van, the guys are also conversing.

“I have more ammo coming. Do you guys have enough?” Carl asks.

Johann replies, “I have a few thousand rounds put away. How about you Eddie?”

“I am good. Although, I can always use more. One can never have too much. Are we having a shooting party some time soon at your range Carl?”

“Most certainly. I will check out the schedule and let you know what I have open.”

Kat then chimes in, “hey, did I hear something about a party?”

“A shooting party,” Eddie tells her.

“I hope that us girls are invited to this party,” she tells him.

Carl chuckles and says, “of course you are.”

Vicki adds in, “that’s good, hate to have them have too much fun without us.”

“For sure,” Anna says.

“Oh my,” Johann says pointing toward the windows, “do you see that bull? It’s huge!”

Everyone turns and looks out the side windows.

“WOW!” says Anna.

Vicki chimes in, “that thing is ginormous.”

“I wouldn’t want to be inside that fence,” Eddie replies.

Johann is laughing and pointing, “check out the sign. It says do not cross this field unless you can do it in 9 seconds because the bull can do it in 10. That is hilarious.”

They all erupt, filling the van with laughter.

“I guess none of us will be crossing that field,” Carl snickers.

Finishing up their drive Carl pulls into a parking space. “YEAH!” they all exclaim.

Everyone piles out of the van, puts on their walking shoes, grab their water bottles and shut all the doors. They are walking over to the trail and Johann says, “Hey look, they have hammocks in the circle. We can take a nap when we get done with everything.”

“We will keep that in mind,” Carl replies.

AJ walks up to the group from the direction of the circle. “Howdy everyone! Ready to get this workout going?”

“Yeah!” they all answer her.

“Awesome, we are going to start out by going up the Tridge. Then we’ll take one leg to the left and do a circle, come back and take the other leg to the right and go down a ways, cross over and come back. We’ll finish up with kayaking. Let’s go!”

AJ leads them up the path to the Tridge. It’s a wooden bridge where two rivers come together and there are three legs that meet in the middle. Each leg has an arch and is lit up at night with lights on the outside. When they get to the middle they go to the left, exiting the Tridge they follow the path around to the right. This takes them along between the river and the ball diamonds. Going through the parking lot and around the other side of the fields to get right back to the Tridge.

“How was that pace? You guys are unusually quiet today,” AJ says to them as she turns around and walks backwards while facing them.

Vicki smiles and replies, “well, it certainly challenged us for being on a flat dirt path.” The rest of the crew nods in agreement.

“Well, let’s head to the left again when we get to the middle. Our pace over the Tridge will be a bit more relaxed and then we’ll pick it up once we get back on the path.”

Crossing the Tridge they look to the south and there are trees lining the river for as far as they can see. A blue heron glides across a couple feet above the water from the east bank, landing on a log jutting out on the opposite side. The group picks up the pace as they cross onto the asphalt path parallel to the river with an open field on their left.

“Come on, let's add-in some fun. We are going to play leap frog. Get into a single file line and the last person will go up to the front Waiting a few seconds and then the next person and so forth until I decide to stop y’all.” AJ says to them.

Johann is at the back of the pack, “ready everyone?”

“YEAH!” the rest shout back to him.

“Here I go...”

“Again on my own.” Carl sings back to him.

The gang chuckles and starts clapping in unison as Johann reaches the front of the line. Off to the left is the skatepark with a couple of boys doing flips and tricks.

Next up is Anna, “I’m ready, are you?”

“READY!” they all shout.

Anna moves along the group, going under the road and reaches the front of the line. “Next!”

“That would be me,” Vicki replies and steps out around Kat. Speedily walking along the group, she reaches the front. “Yes, I made it. Ready for you Kat after the stop sign.” On their right is a boat launch, nothing fancy, just lots of sand crushed on grooved concrete leading down to the water with double stacks of flat rocks on the sides in two tiers.

Kat moves to the left and walks around Carl. “Here we go, almost to the Red River Bridge.”

“Yes, after the bridge we’ll go into the park and then circle back on the rail-trail,” AJ informed them.

They turn onto the path that crosses the Red River Bridge. “I love this setup, the path is separated by the guard rail,” Vicki mentions to Kat as she passes by.

“Woohoo! Made it!” Kat exclaims as she gets to the other side of the Red River Bridge.

AJ instructs from the middle of the bridge, “Wait up.”

Everyone is off the bridge and crossing into the park. They stay on the path that follows the river and is to the left of the ball fields. They pass by the wooden play structure that is encircled with a nautilus shaped concrete quarter wall.

“It’s time to get back to our leap frog. I do believe we are now at Carl,” AJ smiles.

He steps out from behind Eddie, “Let’s pick up the pace until the turn.”

“Yes!” they all respond in unison.

Passing by another ball diamond and parking lot, Carl makes it to the front of the group. “Ha! I made it!” he exclaims.

“Let’s match or beat that pace until the next parking lot entrance with Eddie passing us all.” AJ informs them.

Eddie takes off around Vicki, picking off each person in the group and making his way to the front just in time to stop for the parking lot entrance. “YEAH! I did it! Beat you guys!”

The group catches up and everyone takes a water break. “We will go to the trail path and start heading back. Once we are done we’ll have about 4 miles of walking and then it’s on to kayaking. Vicki, you are up when we get on the rail trail.”

Putting away their water bottles they walk over to the rail trail and cross the park entrance.

“Let’s go!” Vicki exclaims at the back of the pack. She shoots out around AJ and continues along, passing up Johann.

A bell rings over AJ’s shoulder, she looks behind her and shouts to the group, “BIKE BACK!” Vicki gets into the single file line behind Anna.

“Thank you,” the cyclist says to each of them as they pass by.

She walks on by Anna and takes on Kat, who proceeds to speed up as she approaches her. They both close in on Carl. “Hey gals, what’s up? Ready to kick it up another notch?”

With the long straightaway, they get their pace up to an 11-minute mile. Leading legs are all straight with no bent knees and no lifting, two things that are important in racewalking form.

Carl leads Kat, Anna and Vicki to be on Eddie’s heels. With them all together Vicki steps out into the passing lane to go ahead of them. “Yes! I did it! Passed you all!” She rejoices as they get to the park trail entrance by the Red River Bridge.

“We went through one round of leap frog, which took longer than I expected but I really like that you challenged each other on that last section.” AJ says to them. “Next up we will remain in single file while we go past the houses that will be on our left. After we go under the road up ahead we will slow down for our cool down before stopping at our vehicles to change shoes to go kayaking. Any questions?” AJ asks.

“Nope,” they reply in unison and take off down the path.

Being in single file they are quiet and the pace is back up to the 11-minute mile. The group is focused on getting to the road up ahead. They only look to the left when they hear the splashing and laughing in a pool that is a few yards off the trail. Back to their focus and moving swiftly to the bridge.

“We made it!” Carl exclaims as he gets into the shadow of the bridge. “Time for our cool-down.”

AJ brings up the rear of the group as they continue along the rail trail towards the spray park where kids are running through the water laughing and splashing. “Now to our vehicles.”

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