Dirty Dog Trail 4 Miler

Description

Join us for one of Lexington's only true trail races on the beautiful Veterans Park trails to help keep our watershed clean & green!

The 10th Annual Dirty Dog Trail 4 Miler will take place on Saturday, November 9, 2024 at 9:00am at Veterans Park in South Lexington.

The 4 mile course will traverse portions of the park, trails, and some pathways along/around the scenic East Hickman Creek. The race will be chip timed, and awards will be presented for top 3 M/F Overall and Age Groups (5 year divisions). Commemorative long-sleeved T-shirts will be provided to all registrants. Runners & walkers of all experience levels are welcomed.

We've added a Virtual Runner/Walker opportunity for the Dirty Dog. If you live out of the area or will be out of town during our race, you can still participate and make a donation to the Hickman Creek Conservancy. Register as a virtual for $30, and we'll mail your commemorative race shirt. You can then run/walk/hike your own "Dirty Dog" on your own schedule in your own hometown (optional of course).

PACKET PICKUP: Our packet pickup will be held on race morning from 7:30-8:45am at Veterans Park.

The course will be officially measured and marked for your safety and direction. The course will have some open grassy areas and cross at least one dry rocky creek, as well as consist of mainly hard packed dirt trail areas. There will be at least 2 hydration stops along the course (Mile Marker 1 and 3) where water will be served.

RACE BENEFICIARY Our 2024 race beneficiary will again be the Hickman Creek Conservancy who works to keep our watershed clean and green. Read more below and consider a donation to help them achieve their mission.

Questions about the race can be directed to Bob Baney, Race Director at BobBaney12@gmail.com

4 MILER ROUTE

(This mapping is slightly short but course will be mapped accurately at 4.0 miles, This represents the general configuration of the route.)

Place

Veterans Park - Lexington
650 Southpoint Drive
Lexington, KY US 40515

Race Contact Info

If you have any questions about this race, click the button below.

Veterans Park Trails - Our Host Venue

Our 4 mile course is a mix of grassy field and single track hard packed surfaces. There are some rock surfaces, roots and other mounds and switchbacks to keep things interesting. The start and finish have short sections of .2 and .1 miles respectively where you run in a grassy field from the start/finish to/from the trailhead.

Hickman Creek Conservancy -- Our Charity Beneficiary

We are pleased to partner with the Hickman Creek Conservancy on this race. A portion of race proceeds and 100% of participant donations will go to support this not for profit organization working to keep our watershed clean and green.

About Us
Our Origins
In 2017 efforts began to coordinate the West Hickman Watershed. LFUCG supported those efforts with the West Hickman Watershed Council. Through the meetings held by the council, leadership emerged, including enough interested individuals to incorporate a non-profit focused on the watershed. We hope to assist LFUCG in their endeavors, to help residents of the watershed be good stewards, to plant trees and restore vegetative habitat, and to advocate for green infrastructure and effective watershed management.

A few of our Intentions
Field Trips & Education - Ideally a typical day would involve volunteer work in the morning, a picnic, and an educational field trip in the afternoon. We will focus on brief tours and activities at first to provide opportunities to get families out to the creeks and aware of both the assets and needs. See back cover for some potential sites.

Stream Cleanups - We have new ideas for cleaning up trash in West Hickman Creek and tributaries and are actively working on implementing them. We hope to audit what we collect in order to provide information for those who are working on education efforts to reduce trash in streams.

Volunteer Coordination - In addition to restoration activities typical of a watershed group, we hope to add volunteers to the Watershed-Focused Monitoring Program developed by LFUCG, KRWW, and BCTC that will be focused on West Hickman in 2019. Currently we are helping an HOA find volunteers to conduct stream walks as part of a data collection effort to study sedimentation and erosion.

What’s In a Name?
Fayette County boasts both East and West Hickman Creeks. They join in Jessamine County before entering the Kentucky River as Hickman Creek. Our primary focus right now is the West Hickman Creek watershed within Fayette County. But we are not limiting ourselves forever! Hickman Creek Conservancy was incorporated on Jan 1, 2019, and 501c3 filed on Feb 14, 2019.