6.48-Mile DelGrosso's Spaghetti Sauce Run

No more than a quarter of a mile from my grandparent's house in Tipton is the plant of DelGrosso Foods and the DelGrosso's Amusement Park. It is probably the biggest thing that this area - and Tyrone, Pa. (where I lived before my family moved to Texas in 1976) - has known since the great band leader, Fred Waring, was born here.

Oh, also, James "Pike" Gardner (the creator of Gardner's Candies) is widely known in the confectionary industry of creating the Valentine's Day heart-shaped candy box.

I logged 6.48 miles, using the HARRA tool put together by Geoff Guenther, in 1:08:39.90 for a pace of 10:36 per mile. Actually, this kind of surprised me a bit because it wasn't an easy course. I was simply going to run out for 35 minutes and then back in about 30 because there was a convenience store (Rossi's) on the corner of Hwy. 220 that I was going to get some Gatorade when I was done.

But as I ran out at almost 28 minutes and having gone up three fairly steep hills that involved a climb of about 80 feet (from the lowest point to the highest point of that stretch), it became my turnaround spot as I couldn't tell if a dog was chained up or not. (This was out what is officially known as SR4025, but is marked as Grazierville Rd.)

I ran back to what the "Google Map" calls Clearfield Ave., but what is marked as Tipton Road. Getting back to that point made up about 18 minutes. I did some quick math and decided that a 55-minute run wasn't going to cut it today so I decided to go right and head out Tipton Road some more.

The plan was to go 7 minutes out and then back to that intersection. However as I ran out, I saw a street (Oak Lane) that I needed to get to so I could "map it". From that point though, the .654-mile stretch back to the intersection and then .811-mile stretch to the Hwy. 220 intersection was basically all a slight downhill that about 100 feet in elevation (although you couldn't tell by looking at it.)

So I went out in 7:30.53, but got back to the intersection in 6:59.30. The last .811-mile stretch I covered in 8:09.52. Add that to the 18:04.00 from the turnaround to the preceding intersection and you have 26:13.52 coming back compared to a 27:56.55 going out.

It didn't feel all that strong while running it, but it was good however. (I constantly worried on the three steep hills the wisdom of such, but I knew that I need to continue to run some.)

I plan to travel to State College, Pennsylvania, where Penn State University is located to pick up some Nittany Lion gear; however, I plan to run on or near the beautiful campus (something I've never done before!) They don't call it Happy Valley for nothing!