My Designed Running Loop Courses, Then and Now

My old running block (~3 miles) from my late teen years in Davie, Florida is the standard I use to evaluate the various training courses I've designed, especially those within the past twenty years.  These days my running (often combined with walking) takes place on asphalt road surfaces, while back then practically the entire loop was off-road, on the grass.  For a south Florida locale like Davie...where I went to school...running on grass was totally fine since there wasn't the prevalence of holes in the ground to trip up on like there are up here in northern Florida. I like seeing where I'm stepping...in my own back yard I have to be careful where I plant my feet.  But hitting a hard surface still takes its toll on legs' soft tissue, and I have to take care not to over-train.  That's one big reason I've taken to increasing my speed-walking emphasis...less taxing on the joints. My current standard 3.3-mile neighborhood loop has me passing many, many houses while I have to be attentive...even during low-traffic times of the day...to residents and visitors pulling in and out of driveways.  And then there's often a creepy vehicle or another that drives around me and then just stops in the road, as if the driver is some kind of stalker or Zimmerman-type neighborhood vigilante.  Pedestrians are truly the vulnerable class in this world loaded with suspicion and violently-inclined folks with weapons.  One of my favorite books from some fifteen years ago is Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes.  In it he describes his late-night early morning long-distance training runs...one time he ran thirty miles around San Francisco in his underwear!  I can see myself doing something like that...and then get arrested and have my mug shot plastered over my local news station's screen: no thanks.  No, there are definitely times I want to stay off the road, and one of these is when it's dark outside. As for multiple laps on my loop, fifty years ago in March 1975 I once ran five laps on my old Davie loop, amassing nearly 15 total miles.  In Gainesville, unless I'm running or walking around the block (.7 mile), I don't do multiple laps.  Instead I have extensions designed to the course that create the desired distance.  When I ran 26.6 miles on January 15, 2011 I had a pretty complex running route that took me into some interesting territory.  I haven't ventured any distance near that far in the last few years, unless you're talking the marathon I completed last November along the eastern end of the Hawthorne trail.  But training? I keep it measured and consistent, with lots of time for rest and recovery.  Still, I'd like to revisit that old Davie trail from time to time...