20 miler #1

It started out by myself at my house. Half a mile later I picked up Erin & KJ at Erin's house, 2 miles after that English Mike and Chemistry Steve joined us. Five strong we took it at a leisurely pace up Kelly Drive and out towards Manayunk, where we ran into John W., who joined us. We crossed the Green Lane Bridge in Manayunk and it was into Montgomery County, where I was schooled by Chemistry Steve on how to take those three Belmont Ave. hills. We ran them like hill repeats, one after another, and the legs were willing but my lungs were not as I watched him move out ahead of me. Then it was back over City Line Ave, where John and Mike headed back to the Art Museum via Ford Road. We kept going down Belmont and took a little detour into a country club where we conclusively determined that the fabled northeast end of Woodbine Road does not exist (gmap-pedometer lies). So we took Parkside to BrynMawr to Lebanon, and it was up another friggin hill. At that point Erin and KJ turned down 57th St. and it was down to the two Steves. Lebanon to Upland to Woodbine and over to 66th, down 66th with a few twists and turns to the north end of the Cobbs Creek bike path, and Steve and I interrupted our conversation of arena football and playing hockey in Siberia when Steve turned left down Pine and it was me, alone again, naturally. Lonesome, tired, and starting to get rained on. I kept going down the bike path, through the butterfly sanctuary until finally hitting Warrington, where I turned east and finished the last leg of the route.

Whew, 20 miles, first of the year. You could have saved yourself some reading and just linked to here. Now I tell you! I felt like Kerouac might have felt writing that, just flow of consciousness running through my brain down to my fingers and with a syncopated rhythm that might be free flowing jazz and just reliving the route, alive and running, good folks and good space and just breathing in being out there.

Also updated my journey through the US. Last time I wrote about this I was in Staunton, now I'm a ways past that and back into West Virginia. From the windiness of the roads I'm guessing that I'm humping it up and down alot of mountains, and from the lack of towns I would think its pretty wild where I am now. I currently greet you from Watoga State Park - looks like I'll be camping out here. I can't tell you where I'm heading from here other than that I'm going in a westwardly direction. In light of the recent news maybe I'll look and see if I'm around some coal mining history - bloody strikes, catastrophic cave ins, and the like. But that research will not happen today. Here is my route to date.

Tomorrow I run with Dierdre, who is back from her 3rd place finish at the High Mountain 10k in Jamaica. I try to avoid races with the word "mountain" in the title, but I'm looking forward to hearing her stories about it.