Dogsitting on the Westside... Again

Well, I'm back at it again. I'm back to looking after Ziggy the Wonder Dog. His owners are back on the highway again for a 10 day roadtrip. That means I'm back at taking in the views of all the westside running routes... that's not such a bad thing. It's good to have a little variety to break up the monotony of the usual paths that I take. Today I checked out one of the new additions of bike paths to Madison's westside. It's a pedistrian-bike path that borders on the village of Shorewood Hills and runs parallel to campus drive. It's not a long stretch of asphalt but a nice one for Madison's commuters who don't want to use their cars. It takes you by the V.A. and UW hospitals and extends a little further to the UW's agricultural area. Once you get down to that section, you'll know it... it has the fragrance of hay, sileage and manure wafting about. If you are a country boy like I am, it will make you long for home and bring a tear to your eye... not because you miss home but because your olfactory senses are going into overload... okay, okay, I'm making it out worse that it is... however, it is pungent. Anyways, it's a nice little section of bike path and really does a nice job of connecting with the rest of campus. One of the neat features is that the bike path has a battery of solar powered light fixtures that were installed by Madison Gas and Electric. That will really help people out at night to see and feel safe. I'm anxious to do a night run down that way sometime to check them out and see how they work. After the new path ended I headed over a pedestrian bridge that took me back over to Old University Ave and back on to my normal route of going by Camp Randall Stadium and up the East/West bike path that allows me to get back to the house I'm sitting for. It was a nice 10 mile run and the time passed pretty quickly because I mixed it up by adding in some new sights to my route. It's always fun to do a little exploring while you're out for a run. Oh, and it also helped that it was a gorgeous day to go... nice and cool.

Today's workout: 10.1 miles > 1:15:03 > 7:25 pace

Miles this week: 15.2