Kelly, Mike Jr. and myself are in Conway, SC visiting my Grandma, Aunt, and cousin and her family. Just a nice weekend visit with family. Conway is only about a two hour drive from our humble abode in Raeford. Not sure why we let life get the best of us and not visit more. Today the “Plan” called for a five mile run. It’s a good thing this trip came up so we can talk a little about finding run routes while traveling. Luckily I had my family who is familiar with the area here to bounce some run route idea off of them. There were a few I found online that wouldn’t have been good to run. A couple could have been downright dangerous. Now I’m no stranger to danger… but I’d rather not dodge crazed “are we almost to Myrtle Beach” drivers in bumper to bumper traffic. We did end up finding a couple routes on the USATF website at the Coastal Carolina University Campus. They have a beautiful campus here in Conway, SC. School is out for the summer so other than a few people showing up for some summer camps we had the place to ourselves. We were able to run around the campus for five fun filled miles. My goal was to run at a 9 minute mile pace… and for once I was actually able to keep my goal pace. Well it averaged out to 8:59 minute a mile pace. Let’s just call that close enough. I seem to have a problem with setting a goal pace and keeping with it. The ones I seem to have a hard time with is my LSD (Long, Slow, Distance) runs. Guess we will see what happens tomorrow. Below I’ve put a couple websites that I have found that were helpful in finding run routes.
1. WalkJogRun – This is probably one of my favorite run route websites. Not only do they have a run route finder, they also have a run route creator and a smart phone app. http://www.walkjogrun.net/
2. USATF – Another great source for finding run routes. This is the website I found the route we ran this morning. http://www.usatf.org/routes/search/
3. Runners World – Not only a good route finding tool, but a great resource for runners of all skill levels. http://rw.runnersworld.com/route/routefinder.html