Day 7 February 28, 2008
Our house thermometer reads 10F making today the coldest run yet of the year. A stiff wind adds even more wintry ambiance.
I run northeast down State Road and cross West Chester Pike. A toll house stood at this corner according to a map from 1892. On the same map less than a dozen buildings stand in the area between this intersection and the next eastward toll booth, now the 69th Street Terminal. I will pass hundreds on this morning’s run. The first hundred are in the neighborhood squeezed between the Pike and the Route 100 regional rail line, known to us longtime residents as the P&W tracks. In my more than four decades of residency I’ve never ventured through these half dozen streets. A karate studio and a small playground are tucked back among this cluster of rowhomes.
Looping around Victory Lane, I wonder which victory this commemorates. WWII? WWI? I head west out the Pike and pass Upper Darby’s Police Headquarters. This building looks like a school, which it once was. The Keystone Public School shows on the late 19th century maps but this building is the “New” Keystone School, built in 1909. I’m tempted to make an aside about how my old grade school teachers were tougher than today’s cops, but it will only get me in trouble, both in this world and the next one.
Lots of short blocks weave southward of the Pike. There is a one block loop of stately old homes on Merwood that forms an island of tranquility a stone’s throw from busy Route 3. A large infestation of bamboo forms a towering wall at a corner on Winfield. Despite the freezing temperature this invasive grass glows bright green and is watched alarmingly by the surrounding brown lawns.
I zigzag up Samson and Spruce Streets. Are these the terminal blocks of the city streets that connect across Cobbs Creek going all the way across Philly to the Delaware River? I loop back and forth across blocks of Beverly Hills until I reach home. When I plot my route and calculate my pace, it is my fastest yet. I have unknowingly been speeding, just to stay warm.
Distance: 6.40 miles Time: 58 min 49 sec Pace: 9:11 min/mile
No comments:
Post a Comment