Stranger in a Land of Seasons.

A rainy day in a land far from home, in fact it is so far that they even have something called seasons up here. Eagerly I left the house (of my sister) to get in the car, at this point I realized it was raining and not just a beautiful cloudy day. The fat and lazy runner devil on my left shoulder tried to convince me it wasn't worth it and the pumped energetic angel on my right was telling me to just get out there and run, it was the first day of marathon training and I needed to get out there and run my seven miles. So I went back inside.

Of course you know I went back out as what would be the point of blogging a pleasant but boring sit in the house. I went back in to rearrange my route to keep me off of muddy trails on MapMyTri.com. So, I decide upon a run up the Hobble Creek Parkway near my sisters house in Springville Utah.

The place I started was next to the reservoir which was nearly empty. The rain was falling in a steady drizzle but the fall colors on the trees showed through the rain. The first half of the run was all uphill so this would be a good workout (which was good as all I had was a short sleeve shirt and shorts and a quick warmup was a good thing). It was actually a few miles before I would start to get warm. I was surprised at how many runners I saw out with their dogs. Every one of them had rain gear on. So I was the dumb guy in the canyon today. I was really sorry I had forgot my hat this time. I had to keep cleaning my glasses.

Running through all the trees with changing colors near the creek was just too beautiful and somewhere in here I even started enjoying the rain too. A nice cold rain and fall colors, how could any run be any more different that Mesa Az? I guess it could be snowing but I'll take the rain and colors.

I had decided that the run today would be 7 miles to start off my 4 month to 4 hour marathon in style. Anyway, this was probably a bit more hilly than what I had originally thought but after the run I did last week this one would turn out to be considerably easier with only 400 feet of climbing. Wandering in and out of the groves heading up the canyon my mind was taken from running and into the beautiful collage before me
Not far later the Hobble Creek Golf course started to become visible throught he breaks in the trees on the right. The Golf Course was a brief break in the foliage as I reached the end of the parkway and would make the transition into running on the side of the road from the path.
East Hobble Creek Road is almost as beautiful as the path was but with cars so I would occasionally have to move over to the shoulder (which was pretty narrow). I had figured from the satellite pictures on MapMyTri that once I reached the end of the second meadow that I would turn around and have 7 miles at the end.
From the turnaround it was downhill all the way back. Sometimes it was a bit steep and a little hard on the knees but mostly it was just nice running down the path in the rain. I passed a family out for a walk with umbrellas who were nice enough to let me through. Another couple of joggers and I was back at the car. I felt I could have done some more which was nice. A beautiful way to start training for a new event I haven't done before.