Long run through Bedford Reservation

Today's 24 mile run consisted of two laps of Bedford Reservation, one of the many Metro Parks in the Cleveland Area. Marty, a coworker, and Andy, a long-time friend, joined me for the first 10 mile lap. It was a beautiful morning with temperatures in the upper 20s to low 30s, making it ideal for a run. We started at Egbert shelter and followed the Bridle path to Alexander road. There we retraced our path for the return. We added the little spur from Egbert Shelter to Egbert road to make it an even 10 miles.

Andy and Marty called it a day and I refilled my bottles and started lap 2. I started with the spur section first because I knew that if I did not, the temptation would be too great at the end of the next lap to not run it. After I stopped by my car again for another clif bar, I started back on the bridle trail towards Alexander road.

This lap however, I continued on the Buckeye Trail to Fraizee House on the Tow Path. This added the extra 4 miles for lap two. The little water falls on this section of the trail were flowing well from the recent rains and looked/sounded very nice. Bridal Veil falls in Bedford park was also flowing well. It is too bad that most of Cleveland does not even know these sights exist!

The return up the hill from the Tow Path was not as bad as I thought it would be. However, my feet were starting to rebel a bit from the gravel of the bridle trail. At least I am blaming the gravel; it surely would not be the 20 previous miles could it??

I passed a large group of hikers as I neared the parking lot, and completed my run in just a bit over 4 hours. I felt pretty tired but content. I need to carry more food with me for these long training runs. I learned from my Ironman training that whenever I start to feel the least bit tired or negative thoughts start over-powering the positive ones, I need to eat/drink something to get my energy levels back up. I need to apply this same rule to my running...

Abby and I just took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. That felt good to be out again in the sunshine and to work some kinks out of my legs.

Great day!