Canal Run

I am home from an awesome weekend of scrapbooking at the Villa - Grand Bear Lodge in Utica, IL. I arrived late on Thursday night after watching the Tremont volleyball team play in Fisher. They won - barely - but it was a tally in the win column. The drive to Fisher from Tremont and then from Fisher to Utica was a dreary one. After a full day of continual rain, everything was wet and soggy and gross. Fortunately, I arrived in Utica during a brief respite from the rain just in time to unpack my car in relative dryness.

After unpacking all of my scrapbooking supplies and food for the weekend, I sat down at my table to scrapbook. My goal for the weekend was to get my kids albums done for 2006, run a few miles and relax for a while. I stayed up until 1 a.m. working on some pages before I hit the sack. The next morning I woke up to see the sunshine peeking around the curtain. I thought it was 6 a.m., but I finally gave in and looked at the clock. It was 8:30! Time to get up and get started.

Unfortunately, the rain continued to come down all throughout the day. I was hoping for a brief break in the rain so I could get a run in for the day. I was 5 miles short of my 12 mile goal for the week. As the afternoon wore on, my hopes for a run were dwindling. The rain continued to fall.

Finally around 4 p.m., the rain let up to a light sprinkle. I hopped into my running gear and got prepared for a nice run. My plan was to drive into Utica and go for a run along the canals between LaSalle and Utica. In November, there is a 10k run here along the canals. I was hoping to get a "lay of the land" practice run in prior to the race.

As I was walking out the door, Kim asked me to run with my phone since we were in an unfamiliar area. I was dreading the thought since normally any additional bouncing drives me insane. Since I was layered up against the cold, I clipped my phone on my waistband and pulled my sweatshirt down over it so it would fall to the soggy ground during my run. I drove into Utica and found the paths along the canals.
The ground was very saturated from the all of the rain in the past 24 hours, but the scenery was very nice - and definitely different from running around our small town of Tremont. In this picture, you can see how wet the ground was. The path was fairly smooth and made of gravel...shoe-soaking wet, gravel.

I started on my road taking in the sights of the canals. The green sludge on top of the water was absolutely disgusting. Luckily, the sludge didn't smell at this point. I started out on my run and wasn't sure how far I was going to be running, but I had started the stopwatch on my iTouch to give me an idea of how far I was running.

The path was peaceful and quiet. No one else was around which wasn't a surprise considering the deluge of rain we'd received over the past 24 hours.

As I continued down the path, I came across mile markers which told interesting facts about the canals as well as the mules which were used to move the materials. I enjoyed the scenery during my run. Normally, I'm not a very observant person, but I did notice some herons in the canals. While I'm not a city girl, I don't exactly live on a farm either. Watching a heron take off into flight from the canal with his wings spread wide and his long legs falling behind him was a fun and interesting sight.

I am guessing that I ran about 5 miles in all. I turned around on the path to return to my car when the green sludge sitting on top of the water began to smell. I decided it was far enough down the path and time to return. By the time I finished, my knees were hurting from the uneven ground and my shoes were covered in the grey, gravely matter I had splattered all over myself during my run.

AND because Kim made me take my cell phone on my run - and yes, she did check on me during my run - I was able to snap a few of these pictures to remember my gross, soggy run. Even though when I got down, I truly felt like a runner. Cause only a runner would go out on a 40 degree day when it's been raining all day and everything you touch is going to be wet and gross.