The Glacial River Trail in Ft Atkinson is a nice 8.5 mile one way trail that basically goes along Hwy 26 from downtown Ft Atkinson in a southwesterly direction. Full disclosure, I did not start at the very beginning of the trail. I have a good parking spot at a park that is about a half mile from the beginning so there is .5 miles that I have not run on this trail. I'm going to go ahead and say that I did the whole thing anyway. If that bothers you, I apologize but not really. Let's see the trail!
The first mile goes down Janesville (I think?) Rd past some baseball fields and the world famous Fireside Theater. There's some nice junk art along the way. It should be said that this is mainly a bike trail but I can run farther than most people can bike. It takes a little over a mile to get out of town.
Leaving Fort Atkinson and heading out to the countryside. Out of the picture on the right side you get to go past the lovely water treatment plant. The smell is much more noticeable on the way back in to town.
It's not that bad really.
After three or so miles on a nice paved trail going out of town there is a mile or so on a country road which makes some nice scenery of old barns and rolling hills.
Entering back onto the trail at 4.5 miles. No horses allowed. I always run with my phone (with ipod and runkeeper) in a ziplock bag so I'm happy that it made an appearance in this picture.
The trail continues along, paved for only a couple more miles before dissolving into gravel. The scenery stays pretty much the same. It is a nice, tree-lined lane the whole way.
It's an easy run for the miles because it's just an out and back and flat almost the whole way but never boring. Very fun and good for running without thinking too much about it.
This bridge is not the end.
But only a half mile past is the end. There is a mileage post next to this sign but I covered the lens with my finger on that picture. I was really excited to get to the end of the trail. I haven't run an entire trail in a couple years. My excitement was brief because I soon realized I had another eight miles back to my car.
There are some Indian Mounds along the way on this trail. I was very tempted to take a detour to view the mounds because they're a rare treat. But then I remembered that I has beer waiting for me at home and I wanted to get to that so I skipped the mounds for now.
Getting back into town. Almost done.
Fun time run. It's also the longest I run since the Madison Marathon which was on Memorial Day of this year. So I guess I took the whole summer off. Now I'm standing at Labor Day and figuring it's time to get serious about running once again. Here's the route:
Also, it helps when you get a killer saxophone solo during a long run:
No comments:
Post a Comment