On Friday I learned about the #RunChat Scavenger Hunt that they were holding and this seemed like a fun thing to do to help me make this week’s long run a little more fun.

Welcome back to NY. (c) Stacey Cooper

When I get into the nine and above mileage distance I usually head into New York City and run along the Hudson but while scanning the list of things I needed to look for I knew I could do this where I live here in Westchester.

The rules were pretty simple; take a picture of the item on the list and post it to twitter. Each post is one entry for a bunch of cool prizes. The bonus round involves a blog post. So here it is that blog post.

Ugh, not a fun hill to run up. (c) Stacey Cooper

I’m glad I did this because last night a bunch of fun women to see Patricia Racette’s cabaret performance at 54 Below. It was a incredibly great evening, including the three glasses of wine. That alone usually makes for a difficult long run but I think I hydrated enough because I didn’t feel too many ill effects from it. Yeah, wine! You should also get a copy of Diva on Detour. You will not regret it!

The water tower at Water Baptist Cemetery. (c) Stacey Cooper

This RunChatHunt also gave me the opportunity to look around more and really take notice of things on my usual route and even change it up a bit.

One such detour took me to Comly Avenue in search of water, in particular the Byram River. There is a lovely downhill and it goes by Ward’s Castle, the former home of the Museum of

Ward’s Castle (c) Stacey Cooper

Cartoon Art where I spent many days during my summers watching cartoons in their viewing room. At the bottom of the hills I hit Byram River and remembered that we have a waterfall there. The unfortunate part about this is that I had to go back uphill to finish my photo gathering.

I of course went by Water Baptist Cemetery dating back to 1800’s with graves for the Merritt (think Merritt Parkway) and the Lyon family (think Lyon Park in Port Chester). Near the end of my run I went by the Bush Homestead,

It’s a bridge, a river, and a waterfall! (c) Stacey Cooper

a pre-revolutionary home, located right down the block from my home.

I’m so happy I did this RunChatHunt today if only because it made the run more fun and distracted me from staying in a target pace range or from thinking about what all that wine from last night did to me. It served as the reminder that we need these types of runs to keep from getting bored and in a rut. This may have cured my last bit motivational blahs I’ve had the past month.