Walking Franklin Farm, Herndon Virginia

Health

Walking with the Walrus

AVA Walks and Clubs | Baltimore, Maryland

10 KM VOLKSMARCH - FRANKLIN FARM, HERNDON VA
SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1999

by Kevin Shaw

On a gloriously beautiful, sunny late April Saturday, I headed out with my faithful pooch India, and for a change newcomer puppy Cosmo (new picture above) leaving Peaches at home, to the Franklin Farm subdivision in Herndon Virginia to do one of the 2 1+ rated 10 km walking trails. I met my fellow Sugarloafer clubmember Lynn Towle there about 11:00. The sponsoring club, the Northern Virginia Volksmarchers, had an excellent start/finish spot at the Still Pond Community Center, with lots of parking, clean facilities, and very organized and well staffed registration, sales, and brochure tables. We were off and walking before no time, Lynn taking India's lead and I took the pesky Cosmo, who is still in "training", as this was only his 11th volksmarch (in comparison to veteran India's 186th walk).

The Franklin Farm was a working dairy farm that recently (15 years ago)subdivided into a suburban residences of differing styles and sizes of homes. It is really laid out great, with lots of open spaces and plenty of ponds intersprersed. We walked on a variety of surfaces and through a variety of environments, including neighborhood streets, paths connecting streets through woods, open air corridors (such as power line right of ways), paths around ponds, paths through the woods, etc. There were 2 trails to choose from, and we took the marked trail (Written directions were furnished for the other one). We heard of some difficulties from early walkers in finding some of the markers, but we really didn't have any trouble. Either good, responsive club members went out and improved the markings on the fly, or else we just paid close attention to the trail markings and were very alert to double bands to mark turns and slight marks on occasion that could be easily missed if not careful.

The first checkpoint was a marker tied to a tree, which had a sign with it, which gave us no problem in finding, the second checkpoint was staffed at a turn into one of the larger ponds, and the third checkpoint was a turn off a road where we had to impale our start cards with a punch. The staffers at the 2nd checkpoint gave us water and candy, and forewarned us about the birds and wildlife lying immediately ahead at Still Pond, the largest of the ponds on the route. We saw some very large carp swimming near shore, one of which was partially gold, probably a mixed breed with a goldfish, and many geese and ducks. A bit further along the shore, we saw three turtles basking in the sun on logs just off the shore. Many kids and adults were fishing in this pond, as we were to see later also.

The trail wound around the development in a general loop, and before we knew it we were back at the finish. I had great company to walk with, fellow Sugarloafer Lynn Towle, which certainly made the walk much more enjoyable. I surely appreciated her help with India, though she normally isn't any trouble after the first kilometer, after which she just gets into her normal volksmarch gait and doesn't pull, and just enjoys being out and walking along. Cosmo was quite good, much better than he usually is, as the last half of the walk he had sufficiently mellowed out to be also walking along without pulling incessantly like he usually does with all that unbridled energy. They are both very friendly dogs towards other people and other dogs, getting along great with everyone, exchanging brief greetings with those who want to, and ignoring others who don't.

I was pleased that I had very little back pain during this entire walk, though admittedly it was a rather flat course. I didn't pick up my pace, however, as we did the walk in just a little under three hours. Somehow I have to get my pace up there! Discipline, however, is not my strong point.

At the finish I picked up some brochures I didn't have in my collection, thanked all the great Club volunteers for a great walk, and headed off, satisfied with another nice walk that wasn't just another suburban , neighborhood walk. Some 230 walkers participated on this gorgeous Saturday, which meant that given similiar weather and competition conditions on Sunday, they would have about 115 on Sunday. I don't know how many they had, but I hope they at least had that many, as competition wasn't a factor nor was the weather. I hope we can return to this site sometime in the future, I would definitely enjoy it again.