Trail run

I've been wanting to try trail running for quite some time now...and there's one up @ Mt. Charleston that I've taken my kids hiking on before that's just beautiful. My girlfriend, John & I planned to meet up Saturday morning (yesterday) and attempt to run the trail. My mistake. I should have allowed a couple of days in between running 5 miles for the 1st time, and trying to run a hard trail. Holy crap! My leg was in agony! I did not realize that the back way up the trail was entirely uphill...for about 3 miles or so. And not GRADUALLY uphill...extremely uphill. My husband is such a frickin' stud! He ran the entire trail (with our fat, out of shape dog), ran back to find us, and ran to the end of the trail again. It was so hard! I think had my IT band/knee not been hurting so bad, I could not have run the whole uphill anyways! HARD!!!! Once we reached the peak, the single trail downhill was absolutely stunning! The ash tress were green and the weather was glorious! I loved the run down, although I don't think my knee appreciated it. I think once we did the entire trail and ran back to where our car was parked, we did about 6.5 miles. I could be wrong...but it felt like it! ;) I'm looking forward to my knee feeling better (hopefully soon) and attempting the trail again, with better results. It was so much better than my usual neighborhood runs!