Way To Go Ohio

The great state of Ohio has sent more men to the White House than any other.  Eight of the forty-four US Presidents hail from the Buckeye state.  Columbus, the capitol, sits about in the middle of the state in the Central Lowland area. 

Last week I visited Kenyon College and Denison College with my wife and daughter.  Due to a peculiar combination of circumstances, those two colleges have the best Division III swimming programs and are located about an hour apart, just east of Columbus.  The NCAA Division III Swimming Championships were being contested that weekend in Indianapolis. 

Saturday we visited Kenyon College which is located in Gambier.  The nearest city of any significance is Mount Vernon – about five miles away.  I love running when I travel.  We had a full day, so my run started well before dawn. 

My Garmin quickly found a satellite and I was on my way.  In the darkness I felt the road rise – felt the hill.  Then the road leveled off for about three miles.  Then the terrain gave way and I descended for a mile into Gambier.  You can see a lot of a campus by running around it and I toured Kenyon College at about 8 minutes per mile.

On the return trip the sun began to rise – somewhere - below the bare deciduous tree line.  The sky became less dark - but not really bright – by degrees.  The scenery did not become more colorful.  The ROI for a photo-voltaic system is about 100 years here.  I saw the hill that leads out of Gambier.  It was longer going up than I remembered coming down.   

This time of year the Ohio landscape is bleak.  It seemed like there was more color in the darkness.  My headlamp illuminated the road kill – the white cat with its gut split open – wasn’t there on the outward leg of my run.  It was a redneck smorgasbord – raccoon, squirrel, cat and rabbit. 

Then there were open fields of closely shorn corn stalks.  In five months this year’s crop will be 12 feet tall.  Then there were houses; first farms on several acres, then a small cluster, then the Ohio Eastern Star Health Care Center.  Then there was the mile long descent into Mount Vernon.  In all a 12 mile round trip; before 6:30 am. 

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Sunday was the first of three Rocky Mountain Road Runners Spring Marathon training races.  I ran the 10 mile option in 1:04:46 – about 6:28 / mile, well off the time I ran it in last year. 

I am 800 % done with winter.  The heavy wet snow that fell this Thursday morning interrupted my planned run.  I am hoping that is the last of the snow for the year.