Adventures In Running

Monday, January 16, 2012

Dimple Dell Parkway

On Saturday, January 14th, I took a long run down to the paved Trax trail and then over to the Dimple Dell Parkway.

Every time I run it I think back to the first time I hiked this trail. I don't think we had moved to Utah yet from Illinois, but it was near my sister's house in Sandy and I went hiking there. Totally blistered my shoulders and love the quick ability to get away from the city without leaving the city.

I need to run these trails more. This last week I did a few short stints on the DDP.

Entered the parkway by the Trax station and headed East. I ran up until the big hill for the culvert/tunnel under 1300 East. I have to admit I have never actually run under the road on 700 East. I always went up to the park and over the road and down – I guess I hadn't realized it was possible.

It was a sunny day. I'm not sure it was particularly warm, but down in the gully it got fairly warm with all my layers on and I ended up running with just my lower layers and then down to a long sleeved running shirt on top. After I started down the hill from 1300 East back to 700 East I had one of those magical moments. I don't get them very often – and love them when they occur. Even though I was already 5 or 6 miles into my run, things just flowed. For one beautiful mile I was not tired and running was smooth and a total joy. I didn't have this feeling most (if not all of last year) and it was great. These moments make all the hard training moments worthwhile.

Ended up with almost ten miles on my run. It was a lot colder when I got back on 7th East and I had to put all the layers back on. I was sure glad it was a sunny day out. So were all of the bicyclists that passed me.

It's been a weird winter – but I can't say that I have minded the ability to get on trails still in January.

No comments: