CVNP Trail Run

A few months ago I got an email from this guy (Nathan) in North Carolina who said that he found my website by searching online for N.E. Ohio running. He saw the info about our trail club and was wondering if there would be any group runs going on during his stay with his family in Sebring, Ohio. I told him I'd be willing to show him some trails but his trip eventually got cancelled, so we decided to meet up another time.

Well... this weekend he had another trip planned to visit his family, so he drove to my place in Streetsboro this morning and we headed over to the Happy Days Visitor Center in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park around 8:30. Our plan was just to get in a long trail run and not worry too much about the specifics. Since he said that he's never run on the trails in this area before I decided that we'd run up to the ledges/overlook and then continue to the Pine Grove trail and the Kendall Lake/Kendall Hills area before heading back to Happy Days.

Once again, today's weather was fantastic. At the start of our run it was sunny and in the upper 60s and then warmed up to around 75 later in the day. The low humidity made it feel even better. It's really strange how much nice weather we've been having this summer in N.E. Ohio. The forecast for next week even shows sunshine and temperatures in the mid 80s. I'll take it!

After getting back to Happy Days with 7 miles complete we decided to drive down the road to the Pine Lane parking lot and run the Buckeye Trail from there to the Boston Store and back for a total of 15 miles.

Here's some photos from today's run, including a few surprising ones at the bottom...

We got really close to this little guy... I've never seen a chipmunk so tame...

Heading back to Pine Lane I noticed that the log crossing finally met it's match. It didn't look like this on our way out, but while we were headed to the Boston Store someone must have snapped the log and wiped out in the process...

Here's the shoe print beneath the log... Is it a runner or hiker?