Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Towpath - Manchester Rd

I knew that the Towpath had been expanded through downtown Akron a couple years ago, but I didn't realize that the bike path went so close to my apartment. I had noticed a path while driving past the Manchester Rd exit off of 224, so today I went for a run there.

The weather in Ohio has been cloudy and rainy and today was right on par. I still wore shorts, but had gloves and a hat for the first part of the run. I went north towards downtown Akron. I think it's always cool trying out new trails and paths. The scenery and wildlife was actually pretty interesting, but signs of the city were never too far away. The path went past a couple of industries including the water plant. This section was old and rusty looking and had a couple railroad bridges over top.

Further down, the path went across Summit Lake which is right next to I-76. They had a sign that explained how back when they were using the Ohio-Erie Canal, the lake had shores that were too shallow and swampy to allow for a path along the canal to be built. To fix this, they took over 12,000 dump trucks of mud from the lake and built a floating path above the water. The current path also floats above the water and gives a cool feeling when running over it since you're surrounded by water.

The neighborhoods around Akron aren't the best or safest, but I enjoyed the new adventure. I couldn't make it all the way to downtown Akron since they were building a bridge, but I got about 6 miles in today.

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