It was warm with temperature approaching 50. The stresses of the job were piling up, so I decided the smart thing to do was take a break and go out for a run. It’s nice to be employed in a place that has showers and encourages fitness. Anyway, I changed in the bathroom, currently serving as a storage closet, off my office and headed out the door.
The YMCA is located on historic Warren Square. It is a beautiful building and location and is a baseball’s throw from the Mahoning River, which winds through the town. Across the street and abutting the river is Perkins Park which houses the Warren Amphitheatre, baseball diamonds, soccer fields and the normal accoutrement of park playground apparatus. It also sports an all-purpose trail that runs along the river for a mile. Though I don’t like running on hard surfaces, the idyllic setting and the need for a run with no option for dirt trails nearby compelled me to go.
Since the river is roughly 25 or so feet below the Square, there is a series of steps, 32 in total that drop to the park’s lower level. At some point, I’m thinking it will make a great training ground, especially if I have a pack attached to my back. For now, it serves as the last thing I have to do at the completion of the run. I went down and picked up the trail along the river and noticed that the water was running fast and high. It was clearly over the banks by a foot and gaining on the all-purpose trail. I know that water is released from Lake Milton up river and at such times, the river will run high. That, or it was a result of the weekend’s snow melting in the 50-degree, sunny conditions.
The trail winds through the park before climbing up and out to a main Warren thoroughfare at one of the river’s many spillways. Taking the sidewalk for a quarter mile which continues along the river, I reached Packard Park, a twin sister to Perkins and the take-out point for the Mahoning River Trail that Paul and I paddled last November. I crossed over the river on a wooden bridge designed for pedestrian traffic and wound through the woods on the far side before reversing course and returning to the Y.
I was aiming at a 45-minute run. It may have been the warmer temperature, but I was struggling with dead legs as I approached the 32 steps leading out of the park. Climbing quickly (which likely looked slow to anyone with a modicum of running fitness), I reached the top and began my cool down walk/drag. I was beat and I knew it.
So, in less than three weeks I’m thinking of running 59 minutes and riding 59 miles. Based on today’s performance, there is little chance of that happening with any form of dignity, though I’ve never let that stop me from doing anything before.
Run duration: 45 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 140 bpm.
Calories Burned: 765.
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