Starting last Friday, Danin (my training partner) and I had put in our training schedule some time to spend cleaning the rivers/streams along our trail running route and pick-up/collect the trashes that we see scattered along the trail.

From the start of our 26.2K-loop, we started picking up trashes we saw on the trail until we reached where we started. We also cleaned the streams from dried twigs, branches and leaves.

It made our running workout slower but what we did during the said workout was all worth it. If there is a simple thing to do for the good of the environment, picking up of trashes along the trails is a “no brainer” for a trail runner to do. It may not have an immediate result or impact on the environment but the thought of maintaining cleanliness in the environment has a personal satisfaction for me and Danin.

I did not expect that the trash we collected ended up in two plastic bags which we brought as our garbage bags. As we were going back to where we started, Danin thought of tying the bags on his backpack. One can see from the picture of Danin how big are the volumes of the two garbage bags full of trash!

From the contents of the garbage bags, most of them are non-biodegradables—plastics, water bottles, soda cans, junk food plastic bags, candy wrappers, cigarette packs, and plastic bags.

Danin and I will be doing this “exercise” once a week along the trails in my playground.

I hope this personal effort to save the environment will have its “spread” effect to the other trail runners and trekkers of our mountains.