A Good Run Gone Bad

I got up Thursday morning with the best intentions. I had been up late at the local open mic the night before (there was a guy proficient at beat-boxing) and had drank too many beers and eaten some late-night quesadillas.

No school on Thursday, and my wife was away at the convention: working it. So I was living it up.

Thursday morning, the house was quiet. The kids were sleeping, and I wanted to run off the beer. I loaded Lola into the car, and we headed to the Rutgers Ecological Preserve. There's rarely anyone there, so I can let Lola off the leash (once it gets cold and the ticks hibernate) so she can chase deer and squirrels while I run the maze of trails.

But when we got to the bottom of the hill, at the intersection of Cleveland Avenue and River Road, traffic was at a standstill. I just needed to get over to Cedar Lane, but I wasn't going to do it in my van. So I drove back up the hill and parked near the Birnn Chocolate Factory. Back in the old days, when I could really run, I used to cut through the woods, cross the railroad tracks, and make my way through a playground behind the Cedar Lane Apartments, and this would lead me to Cedar Lane. From there I could make my way into the Ecological Preserve.

Lola and I managed to find our way across the railroad tracks without getting hit by a train (and a number of them passed through) but then we ran out of luck. We tramped through some tick and briar filled brush, but could not find a gap in the Cedar Lane Apartment fence. There was no good way to the playground that didn't involve bushwhacking and a machete. We followed some other unused railroad track, wandered by a hobo tent, and then took a long run alongside what I later learned was the Middlesex County Water Plant. There was lots of construction going on, and a giant fence.

Lola was sort of freaking out, due to the construction vehicles on our left and the occasional passing trains on our right. Though I was listening to music on my phone, I never thought to actually look at a Google map of where I was. I figured if I just kept going there would be a gap in the fence. But then the Water Company fence abutted against another fence and I admitted defeat.

We ran back to the car-- which involved more brush and trail blazing-- and drove home. We ran for another 30 minutes in Donaldson Park, the lovely park right next to my house, which I will appreciate a great deal more in the future.