Return to Kendall Hills

Kendall Lake

After getting home from work today I thought about how much fun my brother and I had on our run Sunday so I decided to tackle the Kendall Hills again. On my way there I stopped at Appalachian Outfitters and bought a reservoir dryer to help drain water out of my two hydration backpacks when I am finished using them so that no bacterial forms in them. By the time I arrived at the Kendall Lake parking lot it was after 7, but fortunately the sun doesn't set now until around 7:30 so I figured I could still get in a decent workout before the Cuyahoga Valley police came to lock the parking lot where my car was.

I ended up doing the same thing that Jeff and I did on Sunday - a total of only 3 miles but with 4 big hills included that I made sure to run the entire way up. Then as I started heading back to Kendall Lake, I was able to enjoy another beautiful sunset (a rare occurance during this time of year) while standing on top of one of the biggest hills in the area...

Being in this area the last few days has inspired me to possibly organize a fat ass run here sometime this year where participants will run a 1 mile loop with both of these big hills included, and the object will be to see how many loops you can complete in a 6 hour period. Sounds like a challenge huh?

Just when I thought my fun for today was over, I noticed some movement to the right of me while running on the last trail leading back to the parking lot. I looked over and saw a deer standing only about 10 feet from me...

There must be something that attracts them to this section of trail next to the road because I have seen a lot of other deer in this area before. Well, since I had my camera I started walking towards it and took these 2 videos as I came within about 5 feet...

This deer pretty much just stared at me even when I used the flash on my camera, and then just went back to eating stuff when I continued running. I'm always amazed at how tame some of the deer in the Cuyahoga Valley can be. Then suddenly out of nowhere leaped another deer from the creek bed to the right of me. This deer was also comfortable being around people and must have been a buddy of the other deer because I saw them together on the other side of the road as I was driving back home.

You never know what you'll see while you're out there on the trail and today was more proof of that. My friend Jim Harris sends out a running quote each day to a group of local runners via email, and here is the message that he sent us today. I definitely thought it related to my run today...

"You spend dozens to hundreds of hours on your home courses. This isn't to say they grow old, routine, or boring after the 99th repetition. Even as you run the same place and the same pace, a course never looks quite the same way twice. The combinations of weather, season, light, feelings, and thoughts that you find there are ever changing. Each new run has the potential to surprise you." - Joe Henderson

If you would like to receive Jim's "Quote of the Day", you can send him an email request by clicking HERE.