Seeing that this is probably my last free weekend for the foreseeable future, I decided to indulge myself. While there are times when that could mean shopping or a pedicure, Saturday it meant taking a run, and on such a beautiful day, with a trail half marathon coming in up in less than a month, a long one at that.
My original intention was to do a loop that I’ve done in the past. At about 8 miles, the route goes out Delaware to Whitehall to New Scotland into Slingerlands before getting back on Delaware and back to the DelSo. I really don’t care for the piece which goes along the by-pass between the traffic circle and Kenwood so I decided to run past the circle and jump onto the Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail for a bit to avoid it. But, once I got on the trail, and it was so nice out and the trail was so sweet, I just couldn’t stop myself – I took it to the very end (as in South End) and eventually back up McCarty for a total of just under 13 miles aka almost a half marathon!
The trail was pretty spectacular, especially on a fall day. The surface changes from dirt and grass to stone to blacktop over the distance and there were so many gorgeous views that I’ve never seen from that particular perspective, like the Normanskill with some real activity and the underside of both the 9W and NYS Thruway bridges. I can’t wait to get back on it with the Lunar Girlz, in part because there were a couple of parts which felt pretty remote, but mostly because it was so damn pretty. I think I’d only enjoy it more with some company.
The same day I’ll be running the After the Leaves Have Fallen, they’re taking on the Stockadathon. Here’s hoping for good, fun races to all. Any chance of seeing you at a starting line soon?
DelSo 