Adventures In Running

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Porter Rockwell and Draper Canal Trails - Loop run

Today I had a long run scheduled with Leslie Peterson and her dog Odee. We were meeting at a new location - a park across from the start of the Porter Rockwell Trail. Since Les was running a bit late, I checked out some of the loop trails around that little park as a warmup.

We started our run on the Porter Rockwell Trail and at .8 mile, took the branch off to the Draper Canal Trail. Odee decided he wanted to stop right as I was going through a gate - so he made me do a graceful face plant. We ran the 2.6 miles on the Draper Canal Trail until its end. I was able to run along the edge a lot of the time to get some trail miles in. At that point, we walked up to the Porter Rockwell Trail.

We headed southwest on PR trail to its end at Point of the Mountain. Odee and I did a couple of fun runs up some dirt hills and I stayed on the edge whenever I could. It was very cold and windy when we reached the end of this trail, so we turned around and headed back. I did a lot more exploring and trail running across the dirt fields.

Odee was starting to struggle during the run back on the PR trail. We took it to the end, at which point Les headed out. We switched waist packs for a while - because she was really frustrated with hers and wanted to try mine out.

I was feeling pretty bouncy after 12+ miles of running and had been running pretty slow to stay with Les the last 5 miles. I ran the 1.75 miles back to the South Mountain bridge at a really good clip - staying for the most part between 9:30 and 10:00 minute miles. Not bad for late in a long run and generally uphill section. I was thinking of slowing down on the way back - but my legs still had power and my lungs weren't too bad. I stayed between 8:40 and 9:30 minute miles for the remainder of the PR trail.

Ran a couple more laps around the longest trail in the little park as a cooldown.

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