I’m not so great with the geography around here.

I can get myself around, but I am kind of a little turned around when I think about where certain areas are in relation to one another.

I am continually shocked when I drive from one town into another, not realizing they border one another.

So just know that as I get into the following, because it revolves around the interconnectedness of these cities and towns, and there’s a chance I’ll make a mistake.

Years ago there used to be train lines that ran through all of these towns and they’ve since fallen out of use and become grown over…but people have worked to clean them up and the cities and towns have slowly bought the land from the train companies and cleaned them up further and paved them and turned them into bike lanes. This has been going on over the course of a couple of decades - I feel like it was a story ever since we moved to Framingham.

The map of the Sudbury portion of the trail.

Some towns have moved more quickly on this than others - a few years ago I was walking the path in Concord with a friend and we got to the Sudbury border and there was a big gate and a construction barrier with a ‘Do Not Pass’ sign.

But Sudbury has since completed its portion of the trail. If my understanding is correct, you can take the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail from Sudbury through Concord, all the way up to Lowell, for about 20 miles or more. (Framingham has purchased its land and is supposedly in the process of getting ready to maybe start and then eventually complete its portion of the trail, to extend it even further.)

Last Saturday I did my long run on the Sudbury portion of the trail. I ran 3 miles out and 3 miles back for my 6 mile run. (Interestingly, where I started, at the end of the trail in Sudbury, there is another trail that crosses the Freeman Trail that was another train line being converted into a bike path. That one is not complete in Sudbury. The Freeman runs north-south, this one goes east-west.)

My 3 mile out-and-back didn’t cover all of the ground in Sudbury - I think there’s about 4.5 to 5 miles in Sudbury before you hit Concord.

It’s probably due to the fact that it was 4th of July weekend, but it was very quiet when I ran. Not too many people - a couple of dog walkers, a couple of bikes, a family of turkeys. But there was also not a lot of traffic on the cross streets, which was good. (There are a couple of somewhat dangerous intersections and road crossings for this portion of the trail.)

In the Concord part I remembered seeing some remnants of the train - a signal, I think, and maybe some directional posts? In Sudbury, there were a lot more - old machinery, the tracks were visible next to the road. There was a lot of signage that’s worth reading - I’ll probably take my bike down there at some point so I can stop along the way and learn what everything is.

This is the view for pretty much the entirety of the trail.

There was one spot where the trail crossed some water and it got pretty buggy, which I didn’t love - and it was annoying because I went out and back so I dealt with that twice. Also, there are no trash receptacles on the trail or near the parking areas. Sudbury has no town-wide trash collection, so I guess that’s why, but that was kind of a pain because I had to carry my garbage after I took my gel. If I did other long runs there I’d have to bring a plastic bag or something so I could put my trash in my pocket.

The good thing about the trail, though, is there are a couple of water fountains, and water bottle filling stations.

I mentioned in my training recap last week that I was hoping to run the Esplanade but didn’t feel like driving to Boston. This was a really nice substitute as far as smooth road - and now that I think of it, much much shadier.

It’s a good option for some of my long runs, especially when you consider I could do a full 20-mile run on the path.

And I will certainly be taking a long bike ride there, stopping to read the signs along the way.