I started after 3 PM. The weather was great by then. I wore shorts and short sleeves. Conshohocken was busy with activity. I figured that I'd run out in both directions.
The goal was to run 12 miles total. That would put me at 62 miles for the week and my goal is 82 miles this week. I wasn't sure if I could accomplish today's plan or not, since I was feeling quite beat yesterday.
I was very happy when I started off. While I didn't feel great, I felt much better than I did during yesterday's two runs. I guess I at least was able to recover some. I had no idea what it would be like running this trail, since I had never been there before.
I started off heading north/west. The path is paved for miles and miles. It is an awesome place for bikers. I saw a ton of them. Very few other runners or walkers headed out in the direction I was going. Later on, I'd saw why.
I figured this would be a nice and scenic run along the river. The Septa train tracks are between the river and the trail though. A train went by early on in the run. I had another adventure in the first mile as well. I was coming to a pair of geese. I would've got to them around the same time as a biker. I knew to be cautious. I wasn't even close and all of a sudden, one of them came running at me. I turned and ran the other way. It then took off and flew right over my head. The second one did the same thing. That frightened me, but I dodged a bullet.Earlier, I had an option to split and take the main trail or go on the Cross County Trail. I stayed on the main Schuylkill River Trail. Not only was this trail away from the river, but it cut through industrial sections too. The sights weren't pretty. With no leaves on the trees, that was no help either. There was also no protection from the sun because of that.
Miles 1 and 2 went by comfortably. I wanted to run out to mile 4 and turn around. Shortly before mile 3, I saw a sign that the trail was closed up ahead. That meant that I had to turn around before hitting mile 3.
As I was heading back, I was now running into the wind. That was no fun. I also didn't realize it, but part of the trail was a shared road with cars and trucks. It was barely used, but a truck did come out in front of me.
A bunch of bikers came in the other direction while I was coming back. I figured that they must turn around and come back, but they never did. Maybe they knew a detour around the closed section.
Without much scenery, the miles clicked off slowly. Since I didn't go out as far as I wanted to, I decided to do a short out and back on the Cross County Trail. That trail was very open. There wasn't much to see there either, but more industrial buildings.
I was going uphill now. That wasn't fun, but on the plus side, I had the wind at my back. I was at around 5.33 miles when I got onto this trail. I decided that I'd try to run out a mile and then head back. That would get me back to my car around mile 8. Then, I'd have to battle it out for 4 more miles.
I continued on and wasn't feeling too bad, even though I was climbing a lot. I kept a steady pace. In the beginning of this trail, I went under Route 476 (I did that one the other trail too). That was cool. After that, I saw these giant nets ahead. I realized that it is from the driving range that you can see from the highway.
I crossed a road and kept going. I now decided that I would run to mile 7. I ending up running in front of Ikea. I turned around at mile 7, not far past the store.
After turning around there was some slight uphill. However, it was now mostly downhill. The problem was that I was running into a headwind. That got annoying very quickly. I always had an issue, no matter which direction I was running. My foot was getting kind of sore too.
It was good to make it down the hill and back to the Schuylkill River Trail. It wasn't long until I was back near my car and then on to mile 9. I figured I could make in through these final 3 miles.
Now that I was back in Conshohocken, the trail was busy. There were some cute women out running in this section. The plan was to run to mile 10.5 and then turn around. I now was running on flat trail and with no wind to deal with. That was nice.
I passed a couple runners, including a guy that was moving at a decent clip
. I then turned around at mile 10.5. I was cruising at this point. The final 3 miles got faster and faster. They dropped from 7:16 to 7:06 to 6:51. I was happy to get that last mile under 7 minutes. I was even more thrilled to be done with the run and having made it out in one piece.
When I got back, I went to watch this cross country run to Boston. It came through Bath and went right by my house. I wanted to run it, but I couldn't afford to. Those 11 additional miles would've been difficult too. Maybe if it comes around again next year.
Tomorrow, I'm looking to put in 10 miles at least. I'd like to do more if I can. I'm still undecided if I want to run 2X. That's not likely since it is already early morning. I'll probably just run once in the afternoon. My body isn't feeling great, but I think I can make it through 2 more big days.
12 miles - 1:29:15 (7:26 pace)
No comments:
Post a Comment