I started Labor Day out with a solo run of 2:09 (16 miles) down on the Towpath. That was a nice run – cool and dry and a huge encouragement to me, since the half-marathon is now only three weeks away.

I got home late morning and showered and ate, and then Meredith announced she had an outing for us.

We recently decided to take up an old tradition. We used to take turns planning date days on Saturdays, where one of us would be in charge for the day. That might involve going out and doing a bunch of things, or it might be a mellow day in, but Mer felt as if it was time to start doing that again. Last weekend was Mer’s turn, and since I had to work Saturday, she decided to claim Monday as “her day.” So, she ushered me to the car and gave me directions that took us down into The Valley (but not the Towpath).

The greater Akron area has many smaller parks called Metro Parks. We had talked about going to these ever since we moved to Cuyahoga Falls about a year ago. Mer decided to take action, and she took me to Akron’s Nature Realm park on the edge of The Valley.

The Nature Realm was not a particularly big park. There were three trails – two that were about a half mile in length, and one trail that was 1.5 miles in length. The entire park is only about 100 acres in size, but they did a great job of making it feel remote. The trails wander through the woods and make you feel as if you are far removed from towns and roads. They also decided that the trails should take advantage of the hills of The Valley, and some of the sections of the trails made us sweat. There was a very cool small suspension bridge that we got to cross over a gorge, and you could feel the bridge sway slightly as you crossed. There were a couple of small ponds to look at (one full of turtles). There was a field full of wild flowers, and there were signs telling about the local butterfly population. The park has a visitors’ center (closed on Mondays, as it turns out), and a small flower and herb garden. One of the great things about a small park is you can see the whole thing. We managed to cover all three trails just in the afternoon we were there, and we had a great time tromping around. Mer planned a nice little outing.