By the time I got out of work today the mostly sunny skies had become almost entirely cloudy. I still wanted to get in a run though with temperatures in the lower 70s so I headed over to the Happy Days Visitor Center and planned to do my usual run over to Kendall Lake and back. On my way to the parking lot I was pleasantly surprised to see the clouds beginning to disappear. After getting ready and putting on my Nalgene hydration pack I was on the trail. 
When I reached the ledges I turned left and ran until the next road. Then I turned right and went past the parking lot and onto the trail that circles around the big field. Instead of staying on the trail with the small stones though I veered right and ran on the dirt trail that goes alongside the perimeter of the cliff and up to the Overlook. I love this section because there are a lot of large boulders to jump over and a huge dropoff to your right side.
I continued downhill and followed the trail over to the 1.5 mile Pine Grove loop. After one loop around I then ran over to Kendall Lake, ran around it once, and then headed back in the direction of my car. Today was one of those days where it seemed like it took me forever to get my legs loose. Usually I feel pretty good after a mile or 2 but today my legs were achy (probably from sitting all day at work) and my body kept trying to tell me to stop. On my way back to the Overlook though I was rewarded with a beautiful sunset and stopped for awhile to admire it. I thought to myself... this must be God's way of thanking everyone for spending time in the Cuyahoga Valley on Earth Day. Here's a 5 minute time lapse of what it looked like...
After this I felt much better about the run and enjoyed leaping over all the rocks while running the steady downhill back to Happy Days. I finished up around 8pm, just before sunset, with a total of 7 miles.
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