Day 31: Utah Lake

Date: March 26th 2011, 8:30 am
Distance: 17 miles
Weather: A smatter of snow on the ground

My plan was to take the Provo River Trail down to Utah Lake and back. Simple enough. Unfortunately, after about a mile I missed the turn getting on to the river. I was running though neighborhoods, quite lost, until I saw the Carriage Cove apartments and remembered that the trail goes right behind them. Once I was back on track, running next to the river was nice. There were ducks all over the place.

The trail was still closed at I-15. This time I read the signs though, and they said that it would not be open again until summer 2012. WTH?!? (what the heck). The detours weren't the most clearly marked, and you can tell from the map that I got a little creative.

As I was getting closer to the lake, I picked up a skipping stone. Whenever I saw a better one, I dropped the one I had and grabbed it. This went on and on until I got to the lake. I ran out to the end of the dock and flung the rock. 3 skips, and the last one was weak. I know... kinda anti-climactic, but what can you do.

As usual, all the water fountains were turned off. At least the mosquitoes weren't there. Jeff can testify when I say I have never seen so many mosquitoes as I saw in that spot when we volunteered to assist at the Utah Valley Marathon.

A few other notable item:

• A man walked past me on the trail who was the spitting image of Popeye the sailor man. No joke... he even had the black tobacco pipe. And don't just assume that I think any schmoe walking around with a tobacco pipe looks like Popeye. The chin, the mouth, the scowl... it was all there.
• Call me cheesy but I decided to make it a game to smile at everyone I run past. The rule was that I had to smile bigger than they did. There were a lot of runners on the trail and honestly, for the most part, it wasn't that hard. However, there was a really happy man near the end that gave me a run for my money. I already had 16 miles on me and smiling wasn't coming that naturally by that time.
• There was a bunch of spray paint graffiti along the trail. One thing I saw over and over again were the words "Wampus Cat" with the anarchy symbol replacing the "A" in cat. Gotta hand it to them for their creativity. 
• I saw another uneaten banana in the road. I know you think I'm making this up since I saw one last week. Remembering mom's advice, I chose not to eat this one either. Plus it was pretty filthy... just chillin in a mud puddle. No thanks.