[today’s run: 4+ miles]
Last night I was thinking about taking a run in the morning so I looked up the area on Google Maps and found a local stream had a “greenway” alongside it. That sounded much better than trying to run on the local roads.
This morning I got myself up and going. I soon discovered that the map was not quite right because of new construction. But I got around that and headed toward where I thought the greenway was. And I found a waterway and it had a path beside it. But the path had construction barriers and other interruptions.
I got around those impediments by taking a detour on some local streets and did find a nice path. The direction seemed to be a bit funny, but my internal compass is sometimes incorrect, particularly in overcast weather.
I had noted the time when I started out. I figured, if nothing else, I could go for 30 minutes and turn around and retrace my steps and get in a good run. I took my greenway path until it was close to return time and there was an intersection with more construction, so I turned around. I was successful in finding my way back.
While cooling down I fired up my laptop and brought up one of the google maps pedometer pages that lets a person measure distance. It turns out I was not at all on the greenway path I had expected, it was some other greenway. Instead of going southwest I had ended up going southeast. I can see where I messed it up. But it did turn out to be a good run.
update: the reason I posted about this – when I looked up the route on the map, I couldn’t remember exactly where I turned around. There are two road crossings about 1/3 mile apart. So either I ran a little over four or a little less than five. The time was just under an hour which suggests closer to five. But I don’t remember crossing that other road, so maybe closer to four.