Alhambra

Afternoon Walk

Afternoon Ride

Afternoon Trail Run

Evening Run

I've been wanting to establish a fastest known time (FKT) on this trail for the last 12 months. Tar Hollow is about 30 minutes away from my house and is a great place to get away from the more crowded Great Seal and Scioto Trail State Parks. The Logan Trail loop is 17 miles and has ~3200 feet of elevation gain split between 6 climbs. 

Logan Trail is a hiking trail in Tar Hollow State Forest and was established by Boy Scout Troop 195 in 1965. It consists of a north and south loop and from what I gather is usually hiked in one long day by hikers or split up into a two day hike via the north and south loops. There is a connector trail that connects the north and south loops near a fire tower and camping area (excluded from this FKT effort). 

I've run all portions of this trail at some point and decided a late winter/early spring run would be best. The Boy Scouts did not design the trails with switchbacks so the ascents/descents can become very greasy/muddy when wet. There are large amounts of briars which are tolerable in the winter/early spring but intolerable in the summer/fall. There are also some stinging nettles in the summer that make portions very unpleasant. 

I started at the Pine Lake parking lot a little after noon on a warm, late winter day. It was a sunny day and the 5 days prior did not have a lot of rainfall making the trail relatively dry for a late winter day. Most consider the Pine Lake parking lot as the start of the trail and the trail is meant to be run in a counter clockwise direction (much larger proportion of red blazes in the counter clockwise direction). The first couple miles had dozens upon dozens of downed trees (presumably from the past 2 wet winters) that made the going very slow and was a bit demoralizing. After the first couple miles the downed trees became much less and the trail opened up and became more runnable. 

I used poles to hike the uphills and after the first couple miles was able to run the flats/downhills. I stopped at around 9.5 miles to refill my water bottles from a stream. I was trying to push the pace on a downhill around mile 12.5 and took a wrong turn that cost me 4-5 minutes. At this point I was a little behind on nutrition (was using a sports drink/gel blocks) so I took a gel and perked up to finish strong over the last 1.5 miles. 

Top Sports

Chase S

Logan Trail FKT (counterclockwise)

5 Comments

Splits

Sign up to view more activities from Chase S

Alhambra

Afternoon Walk

Afternoon Ride

Afternoon Trail Run

Evening Run

Want to see more?

The #1 app for runners and cyclists

Sign Up for Free. Track your progress and reach goals. Join 100 million active people on Strava.

See More from Chase