The Dirt Dog Trail Club runs on trails in the open spaces between Martinez and Pleasanton and Clayton and Oakland. From April through September we run Monday evenings. The rest of the year we run Saturday or Sunday morning with a moonlight run under the full moon, lack of cloud cover permitting.Most of our runs are loop courses of 6-8 miles. A course marker goes out early and marks the course with flour arrows (arrows are usually before, at, and after trail junctions) and a slower runner brings up the rear with a whisk broom to sweep the arrows away and make sure we haven't left an injured runner behind. We also use maps during the rainy season for loop courses involving only fire roads. Getting to the start on time is important to make sure those all-important arrows haven't been whisked away or the maps aren't back in someone's car. Our runs usually have 15 or so runners in attendance during the winter with paces between 6 and 12+ minutes per mile. Monday night runs have been better attended. The arrows (or maps) let you run your own pace with confidence you will get back to your car. We do start promptly at the start time so plan on getting there a few minutes early to ensure that you are ahead of the sweeper.
During the summer months, we send out weekly run announcements. During the winter months, we usually make a decision about where we will run (or in some cases to have no run) Friday morning. This allows us to avoid sloppy trail conditions.Our E-mail list is large which qualifies our run announcements as "bulk". Consequently, you may want to make sure any spam filter will allow "bulk" E-mails from me or Alex to pass through.
We look forward to you joining an upcoming run and thank you for your interest. Please feel free to leave a message under comments if you are interested in being added to the email run announcement list or if you have any questions. We can also be found on fb. Look for us under Dirt Dog Trail Runners.
