Day 2 February 6, 2008
It’s the first week of February and the temperature is over 60F. It’s overcast and there’s an occasional raindrop but a balmy breeze has me feeling that I could run forever. I’m running in only shorts and a T-shirt for the first time this year. It seems like Spring is in the air. A record high will be set today but I know that this is just a meteorological teasing. There’s plenty of winter left. After all the groundhog out in Western Pennsylvania saw his shadow this past Saturday.
I head “up” (westward on) West Chester Pike, also known in numerology circles as PA Route 3. This is a wide boulevard with four divided lanes, two running east and two west. When I was a boy, electric trolleys ran down the center all the way to West Chester, I think. Buses have replaced the trolleys and now there are dogwoods, pines and other struggling flora at the center of the busy thoroughfare where once were wood ties, stone ballast and steel rails.
I run to where The Pike leaves Upper Darby at its intersection with US Route 1. This corner has probably the highest average daily traffic in the township. You can take Route 1 as the slow road to Boston or Miami, but I stay on only a block then loop back and forth through the streets between The Pike and another abandoned rail line. This trackbed is now used primarily by dog walkers and the neighborhood kids. It would make a great site for a Rails-to-Trails project.
After a few loops including the tiny blocks of Ivy and Botanic Courts I come back out to The Pike and turn toward the city. Rather than simply retrace my steps I return to my old neighborhood by Observatory Field (see Day 1). I run down Westdale Road where I once lived. In the old twin’s window a young girl is waving at her father who has just gotten out of a pickup and is coming home from work. The small front yard is strewn with plastic toys much like it was when we rented it. My sons once strewed their toys about the same way. I particularly remember that Halloweens brought hundreds of children to our door in this dense neighborhood. Stocking enough candy required a special trip to the Acme.
It was back in my thirties when I first started running regularly and I lived here. I was a lot faster then, in the last decade of the last century. (I always wanted use that grandiose phrase.) I could run a mile under six minutes back then. I trained for the Boston Marathon many winters by starting my training runs on this street. I’ve since moved a few blocks. My sons have grown to men, put away their toys and moved much farther away. This is the first that I run on this street in more than a decade, but that same delicious smell of Italian cooking that I’ll never forget is still wafting down the road.
Distance: 5.79 miles Time: 55 min 59 sec Pace: 9:40 min/mile
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