Very stretch goal for me this year... I decided to try to run every public road, end-to-end, in East Greenwich, RI. It's not a large town, so it's not an impossible task. I'm situated almost centrally from east to west; however, I am about as far north as you can be without being in Warwick, making the southwestern roads a significant distance. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...
I'm a 44 year old guy who, as my wife likes to say, is a "daylight savings time" runner and has been for 10-15 years. About 4 years ago, I decided to add distance and run more than just 5Ks - I've since completed 4 half marathons and I ran the Blessing of the Fleet (10 miles) twice. I have never exceeded 13.1 miles, which is where the "stretch" portion of this goal comes into play.
My goal is to always depart from and return to my house on these jaunts. East Greenwich is officially within the red boundaries shown in the image below - essentially a rectangle to the west of Rt 4 and a top-heavy triangle to its east. I live a little to the east of Rt 4 at the north end of the town, in the Cindy Ann neighborhood.
This location gives me easy access to most of the eastern half of the town; however the western half is a challenge. Heading out of Cindy Ann to the north isn't bad - there's a walking path to get to Division - but heading west means navigating the 95N on-ramp and the Rt 4 off- and on-ramps. Not something I'm looking forward to... Southwest is an issue of distance - the furthest point from my home base is 8+ miles, meaning a simple round trip exceeds my longest distance and that's not counting the side-roads that I'd ideally be covering along the way.
So, in a nutshell, this might turn into my launching point for completing a marathon later in the year assuming all goes well with health, injuries, weather, etc.
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