Another run on the DPR. Yesterday I turned around at the mile 27 marker. Today I decided to drive and start from there. For those of you interested if you are coming to the north side of Chicago the link for the trails is below. The trails are well kept soft finely crushed limestone. There are many access points, over- and underpasses for the busier streets that are crossed, and numerous bridges for all the river crossings. Last night I didn’t see anyone most likely due to the fact that it was dark by 4pm when I was running. This morning I still only saw one other guy whom I saw twice. However, during the summer on a weekend morning I’ve seen close to 100 people during a 20 mile run. In addition to the one guy I did see another deer this morning. It is amazing how much wildlife there is in this nature corridor. When you consider there is a major tollway on one side and the trail goes behind mostly residential areas. Anyway I’m rambling now, on to the run. As I mentioned I started at mile 27, the first 2-miles were VERY icy so I took it slow and mostly ran off the trail through the brush. Then things cleared up. About that time it started raining. Luckily it was lightly, as the temp was only about 35F. It soon dropped and by mile 4 it was sleeting. On its own this isn’t too bad but the wind made it not too enjoyable. The good news is that by mile 6 it was snowing and this helped improve my footing on the icy patches so that I could run on the trail. The “funny” part of the run came when I was going under a flooded underpass. On the way out there wasn’t a problem. On the way back I thought there was more trail because of the snow but it was covered ice and I went right through into ankle deep water. Luckily I was warmed up enough that my foot didn’t mind… Avg. 8:26 HR 132
Official website: http://www.fpdcc.com/tier3.php?content_id=68&file=map_68j
Better website: http://www.trailville.com/wiki/IL_Des_Plaines_River_Trail
Yesterday was the incomplete section. So I did a detour. It looks like some land owners are being sticklers... Lots of no trespassing and no parking signs in that area.
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