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This is the – in my humble opinion – correct way to hit 8 miles at Forest Meadows. In fact, this is possibly the best way to hit any loop of any distance at forest Meadows. Oh CNL, how I love thee, let me count thy ways — in all seriousness, this is genuinely a very nice loop for several reasons. 

For one, this is quite easy to hit. Not absurdly easy, there are semblances of hills throughout, but nothing remotely tedious. For me at least, the CNL hits the mere minimum in terms of elevation, where I am reminded that I don’t not live in a flat planar world, devoid of flaw or variance, but instead of elegant mild variance. Also, it's not too hilly either, which is kind of nice. For a route as long as this once, the lack of elevation climbing on the CNL feels amazing. 

Also, the trails that you need to hit are just nice normal trails. I don’t know how else to explain this concept of the wonder of plain simple trails other than plainly and simply. There are no fancy turns in the CNL or branches into relatively exotic territory. The entire loop plainly follows horse trails. And even though the route is pretty simple, it's pretty repetition free. In fact, there are only 1.4 miles of the run that consists of the same trail in the same direction. For the other 6.6 miles of this run, the scenery will be more or less unique, even though roughly 5.2 miles of the route are on the same trails but in the opposite direction. 

One last very nice part of the CNL is its precision in its distance. As a fellow runner, you probably know how most loops work, they are never the exact distance you want. Especially at Forest Meadows, nearly every route that I recommend is usually 0.1 to 0.2 over the amount you want to hit, barring your watches accuracy. Well, the CNL is the only loop that I trust more than my watch in knowing the precise distance. The only factor that determines whether you will have to do a little extra distance at the end of your run to pay the Strava tax depends entirely on how kind your watch is. 

Now after this unfathomable amount of sweet talk for a route, not something that has any bearing on the actual quality of human life on earth, you are probably very excited to hear me tell you where it is and definitely not remotely excited to learn that I am finished lauding a route in the ground. Well, to hit the CNL, you first need to do a Cashin loop. Then, when you reach Gate B again, you do a Morning Loop backwards, continuing in the direction you were approaching Gate B at, starting by going down the lake hill. From there, you continue your backwards Morning Loop, but you cut it short, running back through the sun field and all the way to Gate B, where you take the main trail back. 

I don’t care how simple it sounds; this route is perfection. Also, it's one of the few complete routes with a unique name.