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Leelanau

Leelanau County

Leelanau County Run

Started this run feeling pretty good, a little exhausted from my previous two runs, because I hit it pretty hard those last couple. Loved the farm country at this part of the county. I’ve never been to this part of the county. All over the rest but not here. Loved seeing all the corn.

First part of the run was all up-hill not bad but long and continuous.

After I turned the corner on this photo above I was surprised that it just continued up…
This was the creek on the south side of the path.
Lots of fantastic fields everywhere.

Northwest section of the run had this park.
Loved all the barns and corn.
Not sure why I took this photo. Just remember cutting, splitting, and stacking a lot of wood as a kid.
Creek on the north side of the route.
Much of the end of the run was re-paved and the machines used to do the road work were right at the end of my run. What a great day/run.


I have in the past run a 5k in Leelanau, but not often and mostly the lower part of the county, just outside of Traverse City. My buddies at Byte Productions have hosted a 5k for the past several years Called the Blue Ribbon Run. It is in memory of their dad Curt Barrons and it benefits the local chapter of Us TOO, a prostate cancer education and support group.
The very first year it was hosted by their office in Leelanau County, but the event moved into Traverse City once they moved their office.

I also used to work for Matheson Greens and North Country Gardens through a company called Peninsula Management Group out of Northport. I have run once in Northport from the High School around town. I think I was rock climbing at the gym that day. But there are so many great places in this county Empire, Glen Arbor, Leland, Suttons Bay, and even Maple City. I used to live in Interlochen and drive through Maple City to get to work in Northport.

My son and I have gone to North Manitou Island for a weekend and I’ve always wanted to take my wife to South Manitou… Maybe this would be a great reason to go there. Not sure if there is a route that would be a 5k (without repeating) but it would be fun even if I did have to repeat trail.

**Well, I didn’t do this, just came a day when I wanted to check a county off the list that was close.

Leelanau County

Bingham
Centerville
Cleveland
Elmwood
Empire
Glen Arbor
Kasson
Leelanau
Leland
Northport
Northport
Solon
Suttons Bay

Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns / cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run)

Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past.

Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!

Benzie

Benzie County

Benzie County Run

Hope Cantrall (friend from Benzie High School) and I meeting up for this run. I’ve stayed in contact with her through the years, but haven’t seen her face to face since 1989! She lives out of state now but was visiting her old hometown so good to see her in person again.
The start of our run looking at Crystal Lake.
Running by the boats on Crystal Lake.
There is a nice path that goes along the shoreline.
We had planned on starting this Run at 7am, but there was a HUGE thunderstorm. We didn’t start this run until about 9:30am… The trail had some wet spots for sure!
We saw this statue across the water on the run. This was my shot of it…
This was Hope’s shot. It’s obvious to me that I need to work on getting better pictures on these 5k runs!
Was cool seeing the steam above the trees, across the Lake.
Post run shot. Thanks for joining me Hope!
Hope’s pace is much faster than mine so I appreciate her running slow with me, but this was pretty fast for me. My short-term goal is to get back to running 10 min miles, so I can complete 5k’s in about 30 minutes.

I had thought of this county a few times before I did it. Thinking maybe I should run by my houses (3 different locations), maybe a run by my school, maybe by my families areas, or possibly a run by the Betsie River and Crystal Mountain, as I’ve ran several half marathons there…

But after talking to Hope and hearing that she would be visiting Beulah, I decided that it would be cool to run with a runner from high school. There are a lot of others that I went to high school with that may live in an unfinished county… Let me know if you have a county that I should do and please do your county with me!

Benzie County

Almira
Benzonia Benzonia
Beulah

Beulah
Blaine
Colfax
Crystal Lake
Elberta
Frankfort
Frankfort
Gilmore
Homestead
Honor
Inland
Joyfield
Lake
Lake Ann
Platte
Thompsonville
Thompsonville
Weldon

Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns / cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run)

Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past.

Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!

Osceola

Osceola County

Osceola County Run

Was heading back north from a visit with my family and decided to head over to 131 through because M115 was closed for construction.
Across the main road there is an airport west of here in the area.
Interesting stacks of stuff.
Heading South on 95th.
Found this main path that headed east through the south side of town.
Twin Creek that went under that path.
There is a skateboard park just off the trail.
First glimpse of the old train bridge. This trail is a rails to trails type path.
Closer look at this amazing little bridge.
The Muskegon River goes under that bridge.
Look at the bridge from the road.
Look at the road from the bridge.
On the north side of town I ran by the school. Very cool run.

Was done in Clare county visiting my parents and wanted to hit another county. Decided to drive to Evart. One cool thing about Evart is that the rail to trail system that I was running on in Clare county continues through this one too! One of the coolest things about the trail is the old train bridge that goes over the Muskegon river. Also M115 had road construction that took me on a detour to Marion to get downstate, so it was nice to drive through this county to join up with US131 to get home.

Osceola County

Burdell
Cedar
Evart
Hartwick
Hersey
Highland
LeRoy
Lincoln
Marion
Middle Branch
Orient
Osceola
Reed City
Reed City
Richmond
Rose Lake
Sherman
Sylvan
Tustin

Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns / cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run)

Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past.

Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!

Antrim

Antrim County

Antrim County Run

This was a run where my phone failed me because I must have hit a button and didn’t realize it. So I have no idea what my time was on this run, but my wife said it was about 40 min.
We drove out to Elk Rapids together and took this shot before the run. Lisa went for a walk while I ran. Thank you so much Lisa.
First road heading east on the south side of Bass Lake.
At the end of the above road I ran into this golf course.
Then headed north
Heading west on the North east side of the lake. Was pretty quite in this area. Not a lot of houses.
On this road I didn’t realize that the roads broke until I was halfway through my run. I kept going back and forth until I finally looked at my phone with an expanded view. Had to find a wa to the other road. It was easy on foot but not possible with a car. Would have been cool to know this prior to starting the route.
View of the lake through the trees.
Looks like a boat launch.
One of the few houses I saw on this route. There were others but they were on offshoot roads towards the lake.
Thought this was a cool little park.
Coming back into town. Took a little different route than the map above shows, but it was for sure a 5k with all the back and fourth trying to find my way where the road split.

No real plan here. Just knew Elk Rapids was the closest county to run and instead of doing my regular run I asked Lisa if she would go to Elk Rapids or Leelanau County with me. We decided on Antrim County. I looked up Bass Lake on Map My Run website and realized that it was about a 5k just a few minutes before leaving home.

Antrim County

Banks
Bellaire
Central Lake
Chestonia
Custer
Echo
Elk Rapids
Ellsworth
Forest Home
Helena
Jordan
Kearney
Mancelona
Milton
Star
Torch Lake
Warner

Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns / cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run)

Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past.

Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!

Kalkaska

Kalkaska County

Kalkaska County Run

Started on Chalker Park and turned SW on Cedar St (the main drag).
Took a picture in front of the fish fountain. Kalkaska is home to the National Trout festival.
Crossed the road and took a picture facing North.
I think this is heading west on 1st st.
Running past the Cemetery on Kalkaska Rd.
Found the football field and water tower.
I think there was a slight sprinkle that was off and on during this whole run. Very light sprinkle.
This is probably West St or 3rd St. Dug the shadow on the road.
Ran past a school.
Almost done with the run. Heading back to the park.
The drive home on 72.

This is another one those close counties that I could just do from home. I was pretty sure that I wanted to explore the downtown area and go places that I haven’t been before. Drew up a plan on MapMyRun:

I took pictures of the map, that way I would have the map on my phone. that would give me a 5k distance if I just followed the map. Problem: sometimes you can’t see that phone in the sunlight. also it’s difficult to read the street names on screen while running. You’ll notice that my completed run doesn’t match this map, but it’s similar.

Also, before the run I really wanted to shoot hoops. I hadn’t done that in a while. So I offered a kid playing basketball $1 if he could beat me in a game of horse. No charge if I beat him. Really I just wanted to shoot a basketball. He did beat me, but it was close.

Kalkaska County

Blue Lake
Boardman
Clearwater
Coldsprings
Excelsior
Garfield
Kalkaska
Oliver
Orange
Rapid River
Springfield

Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns / cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run)

Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past.

Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!

Contact

If you have some ideas about a county please share them on that counties comments section. I would like others to see what makes the county great.  If you would like to contact me privately you can do so here:                                   thanks. m