Patrick had a tennis match scheduled, actually three matches --- Waubonsie Valley was competing in a quad event at Wheaton Warrenville South High School. So, I dropped Patrick off at school to join his team on a bus to the event.
I headed over to Herrick Lake which less than 1/2 from Wheaton Warrenville High School.
I ran about 1/4 mile on the Herrick Lake trail until I picked up the Illinois Prairie Path. I headed west on the IPP until I reached the Blackwell Forest Preserve. This was the first time I had gone this way.
The IPP west from Herrick is interesting. It runs right along with Butterfield Road which has a fair amount on traffic. The path is asphalt on this stretch, although it it broken up in places. The elevation also changes as it goes -- it is never flat. The IPP runs on both sides of Butterfield for about 1/2 mile until the north side tunrs under the road and connect with the south side.
You cross a busy intersection to get onto the Blackwell trail. But at 7AM on a Saturday morning, that was easy to accomplish. I enjoyed the run through Blackwell, but I didn't follow the trail completely around. My goal was to run ~6.3 miles or so today. Throughout Blackwell, the terrain changes. There are lot sof small streches of uphill and downhills. Of course, Blackwell is most famout for Mount Hoy, or Mount Trashmore since it formerly was a garbage dump. I almost made it to McKee Marsh. Next time.
There was one negative about running through Blackwell. My Garmin went crazy. The third mile was definitely short --- maybe about 1/3 mile short. The 4th mile was short too. Otherwise, I ran those two miles in 14 minutes, which wa snot likely. That took away a lot of my energy, so I'm estimating that I ran 6.5 miles today. The good part is that my time to my turnaround out and my time in were within 10 seconds of each other.
Patrick had a tough day on the tennis courts. This event was doubles only. They played a JV1 team of sophomores in their first match (Patrick is a JV2 player) and were beaten easily. In the second match, they won the first set, lost the second set, and lost the tiebreaker. This broke their spirits for the next match. They played well in the second set in this match, but lost 6-1, 6-4.
