Running the Four, er, Two Corners

Yesterday, Helen and I headed out to run half of the "four corners" route in the Wissahickon. The plan, originally, was to run all four corners. This was the plan, not our plan, and when the originally planner got hurt, we decided to cut things down a bit. Good thing, too. We ran too and from the Wissahickon to start things off (probably less than a half hour). Including that, we had a total run time of around two hours forty minutes.

For people how know the Wissahickon, the four corners route goes to each corner of the park, using the outermost trail at any time. Since we start towards Valley Green, our route was to run to the park, take the White trail to where it ends (by Hortter st.), get on the Brown trail, take that to Rittenhouse Town, cross Lincoln, get on that other trail that basically goes from Alden Park to Ridge (along Lincoln, but on the other side from the bike path); take Ridge to the bike path; get on the Yellow trail… and then yesterday, since we were only doing two corners, we headed down to Valley Green then went back home. For the other two corners, you take the Yellow trail to Bell's Mill, cross on Forbidden then go up till you get to the corner of the park, then back down to Forbidden and Northwestern, out to G-Town, cross the bridge, then get back – on the White trail, I believe.

Yesterday was a long run, but a fun one. Helen twisted her ankle a couple times early, which had me worried – both for the run and for her. But it held up for the whole run. We took it pretty easy for most of the run, since we knew how far we had to go. That's said, we're not exactly sure how far that was. It's around a mile to where we went into the park, probably another half down to the White trail. Our White, Brown, and Yellow trail running, plus the other-side-of-Lincoln trail running, does a sort of 'lap' around an area that, if you just take Forbidden and the Lincoln Drive trail, is around 8 miles. (I think; I forget how long the Lincoln Drive trail is; around 6 on Forbidden). Then 1.75 home from Valley Green.

I'm sore today; but I'm not nearly as sore as I would have been, had we done that much running on roads. And it was more fun this way – less hot, more exciting, fewer cars. That said, I don't see doing all four anytime soon. That's a long, long run.