New bike path

Well, since I've been living in Geneva, I have been running on the Fox River Trail that goes between Elgin and Aurora. Personally, I only run from St. Charles (or a little north) to Batavia and past it, once to N. Aurora. But I've always driven down to the parking lot in Geneva and then start my run. Unfortunately, I get to Luke's place (can't quite comfortably call it home/my place yet) 15 minutes before 5pm. by the time I'm ready to go, it's 5pm, rush hour traffic. And it's still rush hour at 6pm when I'm done running.

When we first started dating, Luke told me that he rides his bike to work cutting through neighbourhoods and then onto the Fox River Trail for a little bit. I told him when we were talking about moving in that he'll have to show me how he goes about getting down there to the trail. Well, on our bike ride Monday night, he finally did.

So tonight, when I went on my run, I got to leave from the parking lot. Which is great because that's what I enjoy doing on my runs in DeKalb. I got to leave straight from my apartment without having to drive anywhere.

It's 2 miles exactly from his parking lot to the bridge that goes across the Fox River. And I was going to do just that and go back to make it a 4 mile run. But I had some frustrations I needed to pound out (thus my 8:41 min first mile) so I decided to just keep going and run on the trail for a little bit and find the 3.11 mile marker and that I did. At a good spot too, right before a bridge. And so then I turned around and came back.

Now the roads that I ran on to get to the trail are not flat unfortunately. So going to the trail was good since it was downhill and I was going so fast. But the run back, not so much. It's all uphill from the river. It'll be interesting to see how my body reacts. When I was at the beginning of my marathon training and doing a lot of those runs at Luke's parents, my body got used to the hills a lot faster than I thought I would and I had some pretty good quick runs up there. So it might be good thing after all.

But at the same time I also have to remember that this is the summertime and I will have some bad runs (like today) where my times are slow, slower than I would like or expect. You'll see what I mean below.

Now the thing that was sucky about tonight is that I am sharing an apartment with someone now. When I leave my apartment for a run around my neighbourhood, I leave my door unlocked so I don't have to carry any keys with me. I'll be gone for an hour max usually. So that's what I did tonight. Luke wasn't home from work yet. But when I arrived at home, I found the door was locked. I knocked. Unfortunately, I realised Luke had gone to the gym. He ran there and I wasn't sure of the path he takes so I couldn't go there because I was afraid I would miss him if he was on the way back. So I waited and waited and waited. Ended up waiting for 45 minutes, arriving at 7p. All the while I had plans to meet up with someone between 6:30p and 7p in Geneva. And my phone was inside. I thought Luke would know to leave it unlocked since he came home to it unlocked but alas, can't trust him to remember that now. I hate carrying keys or anything with me, if I don't have a pocket for it, but I guess I'll have to from now on.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 712 ft Location: Geneva, IL Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 06/16/10 Up/Downhill: [+285/-285] Time: 05:16 PM Difficulty: 2.6 / 5.0 Performance Distance: 6.20 miles Time: 0:59:16 Speed: 6.3 mph Pace: 9' 34 /mi Calories: 494 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 41 -0' 53 6.9 +0.6 -16 ft 2 8' 56 -0' 38 6.7 +0.4 -85 ft 3 9' 34 +0' 00 6.3 -0.0 +13 ft 4 9' 41 +0' 07 6.2 -0.1 -10 ft 5 10' 19 +0' 45 5.8 -0.5 +66 ft 6 10' 21 +0' 47 5.8 -0.5 +23 ft end 10' 00 +0' 26 6.0 -0.3 +6 ft Versus average of 9' 34 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: Fox River Trail, Geneva