Lincoln Park

(The park, not the band - although the band is pretty groovy.)

Running in the city is somewhat of an art form. Without lovely mountain trails or paths by the river, we city folks are forced to create paths along roadways, through alleys and to parks where we can find them.

I have recently started running around Lincoln Park (12th and East Capitol). Lincoln Park is two blocks long and about a block wide. It is frequented by runners - such as myself, dog walkers, people with kids and city kids who want to sell you chocolate to make money for summer camp.

I'm still trying to get the hang of the running around the park thing. There are rivets in the grass for runners and in most places there are two rivets. In some places there is only one rivet however. Does anyone know the right of way protocol for this? Who gets to run in the rivet?

Also, is there a direction guide? During a brief stint in South Dakota I frequented a gym that had days for certain directions, Monday, Wednesday, Friday - clockwise, all the other days, counter clockwise. This gym also had pacing lights wherein you could keep up with the lights placed around the track and figure out how fast you were going. I think they were red, green and white (for really slow - I was in the white light category). It would be a GREAT idea if they would put lights on the trees so all the runners could pace themselves...kidding.

Also of curiosity is how many times around the park is a mile. It's not a very big park, so I'm betting it takes quite a few rounds to get my obligatory 2 miles in.

When all is said and done, it is nice to have a park and a little green. I do love the city, but dodging cars while trying to focus on your inner chi is sometimes very counter productive.