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I haven’t been running in a bunch of different locations recently, so I was happy to run at Cape Henlopen State Park with my friend Veronica on Saturday.

Since we’ve been talking about heading out to Rehoboth Beach for a run for a long time, it was awesome that both of our schedules worked out so that we could make it out to Rehoboth for a long run. It also worked out well that we both needed to run 12 miles this weekend.

We parked at the parking lot in Cape Henlopen State Park by the start of the Gordons Pond Trail. The park is between Rehoboth Beach and Lewes. (Note that it’s $10 for out-of-state cars and $5 for in-state cars.) We were originally going to do an out-and-back route, but we ended up getting to a dead end, so we did some exploring along the way.

We weren’t always sure where we were, but I definitely enjoyed the scenery. (And there were maps and signs that helped.) Since we both ran the Rehoboth Beach Seashore Marathon in December, during the run, we were comparing the scenery to whether we remembered it from the marathon.

We also found out from someone at a park office that there was a water fountain at the Fishing Pier. Although we did not find the Fishing Pier right away, we did make it there and were able to get some more water.

When we were nearing 12 miles, Veronica brought up the idea of speeding up at the end. While I wasn’t initially a fan of doing so, I do think it helped because my watch tracked our last mile ended up being the fastest (although I wasn’t super consistent about stopping and not stopping my watch). And, as she noted, it makes the speed you run after the fast burst feel slower, when it’s faster than you were running before.

It was a nice day for a run. While it wasn’t as cool as a fall or spring day, it was cooler than all the other long runs I have completed as part of my marathon training.

Afterward, we ended up getting breakfast at Cafe Azafran in Rehoboth Beach, where we stopped because we’d gotten a parking spot in front of it. We enjoyed nearly three full meals between the two of us — waffles and an omelet. It was delicious!

I’m looking forward to our next scenic run.