I don't often spend too much effort on finding a route for my weekend long run. I have been pretty happy with going to the Schuylkill on South St., running north on the trail until Fall bridge, then get onto the MLK until half way and then turn back.

Daniel is pickier. He would do research before every weekend run to make sure we have a nice fun long run. His research this past weekend suggested we do the Perkiomen trail, and so we did. The complicated logistics this time made the run consume our whole day, but I personally never ran one way this far, and the trail's beautiful foliage the whole way through was completely worth it.

We first drove to Green Lane Park which is the north end of the trail and attempted to hitchhike down to the other end.

It was windy and cold. After a while, someone drove by and told us we would get better luck if we moved closer to the highway (I know!) so we hopped in the bed of his truck to get to a gas station near an intersection. Here, it was still cold and windy. Luckily, after 45 minutes or so, a nice gentleman named Randy stopped his white truck to pick us up. We had a nice conversion about food and traveling during the 45 minute car ride.

After saying goodbye to Randy, we talked to a few bikers and learned that the trail was closed due to flooding from heavy rain the night before. While I was a nervous and irritated with the ongoing delay to start the run (I mean, it's 12:30, we only had breakfast, and still have 20+ miles ahead of us), Daniel was extremely psyched about the flood (just like anyone would *cough*). Anyhow, we start running and encountered this:

We turned to the road for about 2 miles, then found our way back to the creek. (Dear reader -- Do you think we should go back and do this trail again when it's not flooding?) I have to say though, back on the trail, it was quite neat to run right next to the vigorous flow:

Shortly after a water break at CVS, we bumped into this incredible photo op:

I waved to all cyclists who cycled by. One of them yelled out "Wow! Shorts in this chilly wind!" which did make me more aware of the brisk that particular moment. Temperature went up and down, and my core stayed hot while the skin felt cold the whole time. We were running at a relatively fast pace (for me anyway) from mile 15-19, but I got quite hungry and exhausted quickly after mile 19. Note to self: bring more gus next time. Anyhow, here's a photo of us at almost the end of the trail:

This is an overview of our effort (from Valley Forge to Green Lane Park):

On the way back, we drove by and had to stop at the Francis Kaufman House, a nice BYOB restaurant that used to be a cigar factory (circa 1850).

I love being welcomed with warm and sweet air after a long cold run, and this place did just that... except the fact that they charged us $2 for the empty glasses to pour our beer in.

We only have 12 miles tomorrow, which seems so short! @dhimmel had planned out the route on ViewRanger we just need to figure out which portion of this Pennypack trail we want to run.

Until later!

P.S. I should also mention that there are a few water stops along the way besides CVS, if any dear reader would like to run this trail at some point in the future. However, I was glad that we brought two water bottles with us to fill up along the way.