Very good run this morning. Not that my legs felt that strong, or that I ran that fast, but it was a good run over a new trail that I hope to use again and again as the years go by. I just learned yesterday that a friend who lives in Northwest Arkansas is also a marathoner; he ran a 3:36 in his first race last fall. He tipped me off that Fayetteville has an excellent (and expanding) system of trails, and I set out this morning from my hotel to explore them.
Most striking thing about the run was the snapped trees all along the route. Fayetteville and all of northern Arkansas was hit recently by a severe ice storm which knocked out power to most of the area; some outlying areas STILL do not have power restored. Fayetteville's power is back and the trails (fortunately) are clear, but the trees along the trail look like they were hit by a tornado. Or a bomb. BIG trees snapped in two. One huge branch, broken off its tree, was suspended over the trail by surviving branches. If there had been any significant wind this morning, I would have been extremely leery of running under that branch; if it falls, anyone unlucky enough to be under it might well be skewered by the falling limbs.
Anyway, once I got oriented and got on the trail itself, as opposed to streets paralleling the trail, it was a very pleasant run. Temp was about 35, no wind to speak of, overcast, and a little damp after overnight rains. The city of Fayetteville has spent a LOT of money on this trail -- numerous bridges over creeks, a 300-yard tunnel under the I-540 freeway, mile markers set into the pavement so that no one can steal them. And they plan to build more than 100 more miles of additional trails. One surprising thing is how flat the trail is. Fayetteville is a very hilly/mountainous town, but they kept the trail really flat. The way they did that is to run it through creek bottoms, hence the need for numerous bridges. From my hotel on the southwest edge of town, I ran east for two miles to get to the trail system, then headed north until after crossing under the I-540 freeway, then turned northeast for another two miles. At that point, I turned around and retraced my path back, finding parts of the trail that I missed the first time. Of course, the tunnel cut off the GPS signal to my Garmin, so I'm not entirely confident of the distance it gave me, but it says I ran 17.8. Maybe I ran more than that; I don't know. Took me a bit under three hours, a 9:42 average. | 