<p>I'm on the XC/Track team, so I'm pretty up on all the trails and all the stuff dealing with running here, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.</p>
<p>But yeah, there are TONS of running trails. A lot of them aren't necessarily meant solely for running, of course, but they are all real good runs. As far as leaving goes, I leave the base at least once a week, in vans, to go to other places in the Springs to run. I don't know if the Marathon team does that, but I'm sure they probably do. It's not too hard to get off base from the hill if you are planning on running more than like 6 miles (pretty much 3 to get to the base limits, 3 to get back to the hill), and at North Gate, the "Santa Fe Trail", a really good running trail passes literally right past it running north south. It doesn't count as leave.</p>
<p>Can 4 digs join the marathon club? Is running a marathon in a certain amount of time a prerequisite, or can I qualify with a 1:30 half marathon?</p>
<p>I'm not really sure if 4 degrees can join the team, I'll try and check on that later today. But I'm pretty sure there is no prerequisitetime or anything. I think they basically just formed a team of people who want to run marathons and they can train together.</p>
<p>I believe you can, I know 4 digs can join triathlon.</p>
<p>what if i were to just go for a run alone (not with a team) and i were to run so far as to be off base. would that be permitted? for some reason i have had this conception of the academy that entailed not being able to leave base. however, from what you guys are saying it sounds like we can leave.</p>
<p>You can't leave whenever you want just on a whim, for any reason. If you are going to go on a run by yourself, not affiliated with any team or group or club, you probably need to sign out, and you can't miss any required function (Class, Formation, military stuff), and even then, I'm not sure if you are technically allowed to leave the base limits. If you are part of the team, and you let your chain of command know that you have, say, practice everyday at 4, then they will know that you are gone everyday from 4 on until ACQ. I'm assuming that they would try to get permission for that team to leave the base every once in a while to run somewhere else. However, unless you are doing specific workouts that you can't really get on the Academy grounds(like tempo runs on a consistently flat trail, stuff like that), you won't really have a need to go off and you can still easily get in a 15 mile run staying on base.</p>
<p>At least thats how things work with the XC/Track team.</p>
<p>I'm with Pat on this one. However, I have seen cadets occasionally run down to the springs area and back. If you absolutely feel like you want to run all the way off base, its possible to get permission from your cadet chain of command or permanent party. As a freshman though, I doubt you'll have much time to commit to that kind of running real often.</p>
<p>Considering you have almost 18,000 acres of base, I doubt you'll need to go off base to run...</p>
<p>The reason that I ask these questions is that I will be training for the Leadville 100 mile and will need to have significantly long training runs. I will also need to run significant hills since there is 30,000 ft of elevation change in the race and I'd rather not run loops around the base. Although, I will if I have to.</p>
<p>I think you will be able to find ways to train here. You'll just need to coordinate with your chain up here. I really don't see too much issues with it.</p>