Saturday, October 1

Albany - the Mohawk-Hudson Trail

Live from New York... It's Saturday Night!


Except I'm in Albany, not NYC. And as I type this, it's Friday, not Saturday.

So my weekend isn't as glamorous as Alec Baldwin's record 16th hosting of SNL, but I did wrap up a pretty fantastic 9.5 mile run. If you're ever in the Albany area, I highly recommend the Mohawk-Hudson Bike-Hike Trail. Why they left "run" out of the title, I'll never know... but people here seem to take the name seriously. I passed, or was passed by, at least three dozen people on foot and on 2 wheels, but only saw three other runners. Is Albany not a running town? With a trail like this, I can't imagine why it wouldn't be? But I digress...

I found the run by piecing together a couple of suggestions from MapMyRun's "search runs" tool. I have Hubby to thank for the map-my-run idea. I probably wouldn't have found the path, or the route from hotel-to-path, any other way. (The hotel front desk staff looked at me like I had three heads when I asked about places to run. Albany really isn't a running town, is it?)

Because my hotel was a couple of miles away from a trailhead, I only ran 4 miles on the trail, but the Mohawk-Hudson stretches about 40 miles along the Erie Canal. I'd love to come back and run more of the trail on another trip. But next time I'll find a way to start at the canal, rather than running to it. The stretch of bike path between my hotel (south part of map) and a business park (around 1 mile marker) was creepy and secluded. I wouldn't run that alone again.* Also, the little stretch of Route 7 was no fun either. There were sidewalks, but there were also way too many cars for my liking.

My run had short, ugly stretches that looked something like this:

But once I got near the river, it looked more like this:

Maybe it was the thrill of running in a completely new place, or maybe it was because the weather here is cooler than in Florida, but the miles flew by. I wasn't expecting to feel good at all on this run, as I did speedwork yesterday (4 x 400 and 2 x 800 @ 7:00), woke up at 4:45am, and spent all day in airports and on airplanes.

But the miles felt good. Rather than looking at my watch and wondering "how many more minutes/miles 'til I can stop" I looked at my watch and thought "wow, that much time has already passed?"

Mohawk-Hudson trail = win.

*Safety note: both Hubby and my brother knew where I'd be running and what time I'd be back. I'm a proponent of runner safety. Speaking of safety, by the time you read this I will also no longer be at the hotel. I enjoy shareing my travel experiences, but am not about to post my current location and room number here!

2 comments:

  1. I think the thing about the Hudson-Mohawk trail (running/cycling by canals & rivers ftw! Can't believe I failed to mention that to you, especially as a waterways fan- love those paths, I remember cycling on them as a kid. *facepalm*) is that people would drive to it as a day out (bring picnic basket & bikes on the back of the car, that sort of thing) rather than a regular daily visit from the city. Also, I think more runners (who may refer to themselves as "joggers". Sorry) would be out in suburbia, and much less likely to run in the city. (It's not really a running destination, either, which might partly explain the blank looks from hotel desk staff) :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The trail/river run views look to be well worth the uglier ones!:)

    ReplyDelete

Penny for your thoughts?