10 at the Brad

I'm helping Ryan with a work project this winter, and the initial meeting was this morning in Freeport, so I ended up bringing Sam into daycare for the day. There were a few errands I wanted to run in Portland as well, so I figured I might as well stop at the Brad in between for a good run. I put out the word on the TMR site, but of course, most people work normal hours so weren't free for a mid-morning Monday run :-) Blaine, however, has a flexible enough schedule that he was able to make it over to meet up with me. Erin and Lillian took advantage of the nice weather and went for a hike while we ran. It was great to catch up with Blaine and have some company for the run! It was also very nice to be running at the Brad again! It's been a while.

We headed out on the Connector a little after 10:30. I had told Val I would run at least some of the course to look for stray flags and arrows, so when we got to Lawrence Road, we turned right and took the dirt road to the powerlines before connecting back with the Connector. The funny thing is that we didn't see any arrows/flags far out; in fact, we picked up all of them on our return between the turn-off on the Boundary Trail to the Connector and the parking lot! I thought for sure those would be the first ones picked up, but it made it easier for us than having to carry them all a long way :-)

When we got back to the parking lot, we were at 7 miles, so we headed across the street and ran Fox Eat and West and back on the Knights Woods Trail. I enjoy the ruggedness of the Connector and the beauty of the streams crossed, but I do so like the open woods on the east side. Very pretty today with the late fall leaves and the bright sunlight. My Garmin beeped 10 miles on the dot when we got back to the lot, so we called it good for the day. Definitely a fun Monday morning run! Thanks Blaine! And thanks, Brad :-) Always nice to see you!