What a Day!

<--- Here I have superimposed the map I get from my Garmin with a Google map of the area. I manually scaled them to the same size and used layers in Photoshop (this is the first time I have tried this). You can see more details (street names, etc) if you click at it to enlarge


Boy, I had a strange day yesterday.

Every Tuesday and Thursday I am taking a fitness class at the Brecksville Rec Center. Sometimes I run to the Rec Center by taking Snowville up, then turn right and run down Brecksville Road. Lately, I have been driving to the RC, parking the car, and then runing a route that goes around the RC.

For some time now I have been thinking that it would be fun to run the Rec Center, following the Buckeye Trail from Snowville Road. I was going to do that yesterday, but I was late and only had one hour so I figured it is better to run on streets (and good thing I did!)

So, I ran up Snowville, down Brecksville Road, then turned right on Parkview Rd to Meadows Dr. then left on Valley Parkway to Brecksville Rd and from there to the RC. This was a total of 7 mi.

Between 5:45-6:30 I did the fitness class with Steve. Since I did not have a car and I had to run back, I decided now to take the Buckeye Trail. I went in the back of the RC, through the woods I managed to find Meadows Dr, ran to Valley Parkway and from there I took the Buckeye trail.

What a disaster! First, I was not sure I was following the right trail. It looked very unfamiliar and I could tell I was running North instead of South. The trail was wet and muddy. And it seemed endless!!! Finally, I found some parts that looked familiar so I knew I was in the right trail and was running towards Snowville, but the ups and downs seemed crazy to me! How did I ran this trail in the summer? Maybe I was just tired. I walked quite a bit. FINALLY, I reached Snowville Rd but had no strength to run up home, so I walked home. It is a good thing I did not attempt to do this before the fitness class!

The total mileage recorded was 14.4 miles, done in 2:36, almost 11 min/mi average pace. Since I have been eating a lot all day long, I decided not to eat dinner. I am continuing with a fast today...