Happy Days to Kendall Hills

About a week ago I talked to Wilma, a friend of mine from Youngstown, and she said that she wanted to run some different trails besides the ones in Mill Creek Park. So, this morning she drove over to my place in Streetsboro and met my brother and I to carpool to the Happy Days Visitor Center in the Cuyahoga Valley. Since Wilma hadn't run here much I decided to take her on a scenic tour past the Ice Box Cave, the ledges and along the ridge by the overlook, and up towards Kendall Lake and the Kendall hills. The weather was great for running today. Around 32 degrees and actually a little bit of sun (the first glimpse of sun in a week). When we started there was a very light rain but that quickly went away. The trails were in pretty good shape today despite all the rain we've had lately and there was a slight coating of snow which provided some traction.

I love this view as you approach the Overlook

The butt kicking Kendall Hills

I felt pretty energetic today and actually ran a lot of hills that I don't usually do. When we reached the Kendall Hills area off of the Salt Run trail we ran the first long hill that you can see after coming out into the clearing. After a bathroom break and some water we then ran up the hill that you can see in the distance on the picture above. This hill is awesome training and we all pushed it to the top.

We then headed back to Happy Days after running around Kendall Lake. Once we got back to my car my watch said we had run 7. 5 miles which was pretty good, but now the question was whether or not we wanted to do more. If we did the Boston Run trail next to the parking lot we would add on another 3 miles which would give us an even 10 miles, but we remembered these hikers telling us before our run how muddy that section was. After a minute of contemplating we decided to give it a shot and see just how muddy it was. The first half of the trail wasn't too bad, but on the second half the ground was pretty saturated and we found ourselves sinking pretty far down into the mud on some of our foot strikes. Once you get dirty though you tend to not pay any attention to what you are actually running through. We ran hard up the last hill which takes you up to the field next to the parking lot. I looked down at my watch and it said we were at 10.6 miles, so we figured we might as well run a loop around the grass field to make it an even 11 miles. When we arrived back at my car we were all very glad that we decided to do a little bit extra, even though we could've easily quit.

Later in the evening I took this sunset photo looking across the street from my apt. complex. The lake effect clouds in the winter always look neat when there is a little bit of sun added to the mix. I guess this is the calm before the storm. Tomorrow we're supposed to have some snow and sub zero wind chills.