Finding dirt in the Chicago suburbs

By -

I went to Chicago for a long weekend to visit a friend, conveniently scheduling one of our "shorter" training runs while I was gone. Armed with a few Googled ideas for where to run, along with suggestions from my friend, I ran just over 14 miles in the Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve.

Route 66 Trail sign and the lovely flat, winding crushed gravel path

The park surrounds Argonne National Laboratories and is infamous for having albino deer. Unfortunately, I didn't see any on my run.

One of the side trails

The main trail circles 9.5 miles through the park, so I looked for side trails to add extra mileage. Sure enough, there were two of about a mile each that allowed me to loop back and add about four additional miles. Overall (at least according to my Nike+) the route was 14.5 miles.

Autumn color and train tracks

The trail was very flat but meandered nicely, and the gravel was small enough that it kept a nice pack and didn't feel rocky at all. It was a bit chilly and tough to start, but as soon as I warmed up and the sun shone through, I really enjoyed the peaceful deciduous forest at its glorious, colorful peak.

Poverty Prairie and gorgeous little fluffy clouds

This was probably my best experience so far finding a longer trail run away from home. But now I'm ready to get back to my beloved rolling hills and MUD!

Glowing golden leaves

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Three days in Wonderland

By -
Image
Mt Rainier, glaciers, alpine forests, and a trail through the heart of it all 16-18 Aug 2015 No run has reshaped the borders of my soul like circumnavigating Mt Rainier. No run has infiltrated my dreams like spending three days just running and not much else, in the middle of the longest summer in the Pacific Northwest's recent memory. No run has made me fall so deeply in love with the magical combination of mountains, wilderness, and summertime. Like all of our great long runs, Ann researched and planned this one. She discovered that most people run the 93-mile Wonderland Trail clockwise, and that we could split the route into three days with a cushy hotel stay each night. We, however, would run the route counterclockwise to start with the longest day of running first. We had a beer with our friend Heather McGrath, who had run around Rainier the previous year, to hear more about her trip, get tips, and make sure that our plan wasn't too crazy.
Read more

Elk Mountain - Kings Mountain loop

By -
Image
Friday Susan and I did our "long run", since she was leaving on Saturday for a 2 week vacation to Ireland.  A long run meaning an incremental increase to what I did the week before, since I am slowly easing back into running because of my herniated disc . We ran 2.5 hours / ~13 miles in Forest Park. With the long run done and the long 4th of July weekend ahead of us, I planned a few harder hikes for John and me to do. The first being the  Elk Mountain - Kings Mountain loop . From the top of King Mountain
Read more

24 for 2024

By -
Image
Top of Saltzman 2024   Susan and I decided to run 24 miles to kick off 2024. As I was looking through our previous routes, I found one called ' 24 mile taper run ', which seemed perfect - how hard can a taper run be? I didn't scrutinize the route closely. Nine miles in, I realized we had to run from the bottom to the very top of Saltzman. Who does that as part of a taper? Apparently, we did, ten years ago. Upon reaching the summit, I had Susan take a photo in the same spot as before. It felt great to push ourselves, which we plan to continue in 2024. Same route, different year -- 2014 Honesty, I love that we are still running routes we created 10 years ago, may be a bit slower though but who cares. I love that for us! 
Read more