Day 19: West Provo

Date: February 26th 2011, 9:00 am
Distance: 12.9 miles
Weather: So Cloudy

The clouds were so thick this morning that you could only see the peaks of the mountains rising above the low cloud layer. The sun looked like a yellow disc in the sky, all of it's brightness being muted by the cloud cover. It snowed 6 inches yesterday and most of that was still out there when I left for today's run. The ground was fine around BYU, but by the time I was getting close to Orem the sidewalks weren't being maintained and I found myself running on snow and slush.

I was surprised at how easy it was to cross the highway. They had set up some good crosswalks up there. Things got tough once I got on Geneva... the long road South. Picture a long, two lane road with no sidewalks. The shoulder of the road was pure mud and slush with deep puddles of icy water sometimes stretching far into the road itself. I found myself running in the middle of the road around puddles and trekking through the muck when cars were coming. I had to adjust my running speed to time it right. I felt like I was playing Frogger out there. On the plus side, all the farmland was a nice change of scenery.

Naturally, by this time my feet were soaked. When I got down to the river trail, a sign told me that this portion of the trail was closed. Gotta love it. I back tracked a while and hopped on 820. I hoped it would meet up with the trail a little ways up. I was right.

Running the trail is always interesting. This time, the river level was super high and the snow in the trees was a grand enough site for me to take my mind off of the issues I was having with my digestive system. When I ran under one of the underpasses, I saw a homeless person's bed neatly made of foam pads, a blanket and a pillow. Which reminds me... 2 years ago, Jeff and I would see a homeless guy pushing a cart up University Ave. as we trained every Saturday. Thinking back on my training this year, I haven't seen him once. Maybe he won the lottery.

The detour made my run nearly 13 miles instead of 12 and the wet socks gave me my first blister of the year. I would rate today's run: 4 out of 10 stars.