Another 20 Miles

As promised, I was up early this morning for my regular long run. I planned on 20 miles, but gave myself a window to go up to 22. It's been three weeks since the 25K and it's been about seven weeks since my last 20-miler, so I didn't want to push it too far.

My initial plan was to get up around 3:30, be done by nine and be napping...well, now. But Beth convinced me that I would fine to get up a little later so I wouldn't have to run in the dark (as much). Personally, the dark doesn't bother me much, but it bothers Beth, so after reviewing the weather, I decided to set my alarm for 4:45 so I could be out the door by 5:15. I was out at 5:21.

The nice thing about running is that you notice things that you normally speed by in your car or bike. Like this island in the Yellow Breeches:


How did an island end up above a dam? Or maybe that just looks like an island because there's a tree growing on it?

The nice thing about living in central Pennsylvania is that while we have all the amenities of living in a suburban area (like having a supermarket less than five minutes away), we still have plenty of country side to admire.
I passed at least three pastures like this one today - two of them is on my normal route to work. There's also an alpaca farm, but they weren't out, so I didn't bother with any pictures.

Sadly, this is also often a part of the scenery as well:

Some people are pigs. I mean, you couldn't just keep it in your car until you found a garbage can? Lemoyne and New Cumberland are both less than a mile from this mess.

After running for about eight miles through the country side, I made my way into Lemoyne/Camp Hill. There's a cemetary up that way - I'm not sure which town it's considered to be "in", but I'm pretty certain it's Lower Allen Township - that's pretty large, so to take a break from the traffic and the pounding (and uneveness - is that a word?) of the sidewalks I ran around it on the path. Tucked in the corner of the cemetary I found this:

In case you can't read this blurry picture it says "Pine View Pet Cemetary". Most people know I'm not exactly an animal-lover, but I have had pets. This pet cemetary is on valuable land - like, really valuable land - and I can't imagine the cost of a plot in this cemetary, but I'm sure it's more than most people would pay to bury their cat (dog, maybe.)

From there I ran up into New Cumberland, turned the wrong way on Bridge Street, turned around and headed back towards Lemoyne - but up near the river this time - to meet up with Market Street. I ran west on Market Street (with the sun behind me - helps keep the sweat out of my eyes for some reason) all the way down to Route 15.

In case you can't read this blurry picture, it was taken at 8:44 and it was 73 degrees out. A great morning for a long run and I had less than five miles to go. From there I pretty much ran straight home. 20.3 miles--although, I'm kind of kicking myself because I'm pretty sure I had a few more miles in me. Everything seemed to go right, I still felt hydrated, well fed and energized. But my legs were tired, so I quit while I was ahead.

Besides, we're going to have a pretty active evening though with at our friends' the Pattons with our Young Adult Small Group from church.