Thanks for Nothing

I already railed about this on a post on coolrunning some time ago, but I'm going to vent again. What is wrong with people's minds that they get it into their heads that a perfectly nice hard packed trail through the woods needs to be "improved" by dumping ton upon ton of that grey gravel bike path crap on it?

I'm referring to the Sag Valley Trail system in Palos Hills, Illinois. This ongoing project to "fix" the path (I run on the yellow trail) is a complete and utter failure. Even their intended purpose of making the footing better on the trail has backfired. This is due to the somewhat heavy use of the trail by people walking their horses. The new gravel stuff is churned right up by the shoes on the horses, leaving a path full of pits. The footing is now awful.

To add to this, they seem to be adding fancy bridges over streams that were never more than a tiny trickle. The heavy use of the path by construction vehicles has destroyed sections of the woods adjacent to the path (probably where they're turning the vehicles around). Just ridiculous. A large expenditure of effort and money to ruin something beautiful. Thanks for nothing.

The run went well:
38 deg F no wind
16.2 miles over somewhat hilly terrain
1:55:30
I ran the first half slow (62 min), and picked it up quite a bit on the second loop, (53:30).