TheUltraFreak: I Run This Town (Part 7: Weeks 20-21)

I Run This Town (Part 7: Weeks 20-21)

Week 20: November 17-23, 2017

I had a race this past weekend in southern Illinois. I did the 50 mile run at the Tunnel Hill ultra marathon. It was my first really long distance I’ve run since having three screws put in my leg one year ago to stabilize a fracture. I had an amazing day and was quite happy with my results. I needed a few days to recover from the distance, so I had to delay my progress on running my streets.

We’ve had a lot of rain lately and I wound up on many dirt road this week. I never realized just how many dirt roads there were in our city. Today, I found a dime and a penny, then later saw a deer cross the road in front of me today.

My husband came out with me one day and we finished our run at the Van Hoosen Farm and Rochester Hills Museum. It was closed but we walked around on the grounds and decided to come back and see it another time when it was open.

Weekly stats: 7.35 miles

Week 21: November 18-24, 2017

It was another rainy day out and I finished up a subdivision near the museum. Later, my husband and I visited the farm and museum. We were given a guided tour of the farm house. The farm is located in Stoney Creek Village, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Van Hoosen family resided here dating back to 1823. It’s amazing to know that some of the structures here date back to 1840. What I learned about the Van Hoosen family daughters astounded me.

Their daughter Bertha graduated from the University of Michigan in 1888 with a degree in medicine. This was a time with women doctors were rare. She was quite the surgeon and developed the “Buttonhole” appendectomy surgical procedure. She also was the person that realized that sterilization of surgical equipment was key to preventing infection. Think of the lives that were saved because of this one discovery. She later used the front room of the farm house for her office. It was so amazing to be standing on ground that was blazed by this amazing lady.

Their other daughter Sarah had a love of the land and earned her Master’s Degree in Animal Husbandry in 1916 and later in 1921 got her doctorate in Animal Genetics from the University of Wisconsin. The family farm was under her direction and in the 1940’s the farm was the first in southeast Michigan to produce certified milk. In 1932 she was named a Master Farmer, one of only two women at the time to hold this title. She was also the first woman in the United States to be named a Premier Breeder of Holstein cattle.

I feel that I am a pretty progressive person. But these two ladies astounded me. How they lead such strong careers and achieve such success so many years ago boggles my mind.

We had the opportunity to meet with the director of the museum and I was able to ask him some questions about an area that I had run in that puzzled me. A few weeks back I had run in a cool area called, “Wayside Park.” It was so unique that I knew it had to be something interesting. It is a big farmhouse and a dead end street that had rows of small houses on them that all looked identical. Turns out there was a seed company here and the little houses on the street were actually rental units for the workers. This seed farm was started in 1902. It is still in business today under the name Ferry-Morse Seed Company, but it is located in Kentucky.

I learned a lot about the history of my area on this visit to the museum and farm. I discovered that the first settlers arrived in the area in 1817. It was later organized and named Avon Township in 1835. Villages were incorporated or annexed throughout the years and in 1984, Avon Township became Rochester Hills. The first mayor was Earl E. Borden, which one of my favorite parks was named after.

I decided that I’d like to finish up my “I Run This Town” project at this area. I know the last few streets in the area will lead me right to the museum and farm. It seems fitting to end my journey in the area that my city was founded 200 years earlier.

I finished up my last part of this area, with the exception of my finish line route. I ran on more dirt roads. A guy in a Cadillac drove past me and went in a pothole, covering me head to tow in mud. Later, I discovered a new sub not on map, with houses starting for the low, low price of $900,000. My day ended by seeing a turkey vulture in a tree on the side of the road. He was eyeing me suspiciously, I decided I needed to run faster to avoid looking like road kill.

For several days it has been snowing lightly during my runs. Nothing has accumulated on the ground yet. I have been seeing Christmas trees lit up in house windows, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. Today I saw my first outdoor Christmas display.

I stopped at shop near my home and the store owner asked me how the project was going. I told him I hope to finish at the end of next week. He asked if I had run by his house yet, he told me where he lives. Surprisingly, I planned to run that area tomorrow.

It occurred to me that when I am done with this project, if someone says they live in my city I will be able to say, “Oh, I’ve run past your house.” They will say, “Well, I didn’t say where I live in the city.” And I can answer back, “It doesn’t matter, I’ve run by every house in Rochester Hills.”

I’ve been playing phone tag with the mayor for the past few weeks. He’s a pretty cool guy. I met him years ago when he was first running for office. He’s the kind of guy that went door to door, meeting the residents and getting to know them. He’s been our longest serving mayor, over ten years. His Twitter account describes him as “Husband of one. Father of two. Mayor of 75K. Love my God, my country, my city, a good grilled cheese and all my Detroit sports teams!” He does his own tweets and you will see him swearing in new firemen, welcoming new businesses, and giving Santa a key to the city. He’s proud of his city and loves being involved.

This is how the mayor describes our city. "Rochester Hills is the jewel of Oakland County and is unique in Southeast Michigan. We take great pride in being a top-notch, family oriented bedroom community. Take a drive, or better yet, a bike ride through any of our tree-lined subdivisions and you will see that families are what make our community great. Whether it's playing ball int he front yard, or talking with the neighbors in the back yard, you cannot help but be swept up in our towns' friendliness and charm. Summer evenings in Rochester Hills are my favorite time of year, and although it has not been proven, I am confident that calories can actually be inhaled as the smell of barbecues waft throughout the community."

Today he left me a voice mail asking me to call him at home over the holiday weekend so we can finally connect. He said he is very excited about the completion of my project and he would gladly join me for the completion of my journey. So it looks like I will finish running the town with the guy that runs the town.

It’s Thanksgiving day and I went out for a morning run. I may not have smelled the barbecue that the mayor spoke of but I could smell turkey cooking and it’s wasn’t even ten o’clock. It’s 25 degrees out and there is some ice on the roads and sidewalk. I saw two other runners and they were wearing shorts, while I am dressed like a normal person would for running in these temperatures. Ironically, I ran down a street called Holiday Court on a holiday.

Later, I went for a second run and took my dog Kirby. She’s a real beauty and most people that pass will comment on how pretty she is. Today was no exception. She runs next to me on her hands-free leash and you can see how happy she is. We ran up the Dutton Road hill today. It’s a well known section of dirt road, made famous locally for being at mile 10 of the Brooksie Way Half Marathon. People forget that Rochester Hills, didn’t get it’s name for being flat. Although I didn’t run the entire course today, I still did a half marathon distance.

I got out for a morning run. I think this should be my last section of dirt road other than the finish line. The shoulder had a big drop off and the road was narrow on the last part of the Dutton Road hill. I was glad there wasn’t too much traffic.

Once I got into the subdivisions I passed a small group of people walking. One lady said to me, “Hey, we saw you running yesterday.” I told her that I was running every street in our city and the shock and amazement in her expression could hardly be contained. I stopped and walked a bit with them and answered their questions. After we parted ways, I kept seeing potatoes on the side of the road. I bumped into the group again and asked them about the potatoes, they were mystified about it as well.

I also found a iPhone charger and a dime today. I’m surprised how few things I’ve found while running the city. I have found about a dollar in change, a plastic lizard, gift cards with no value left on them and several license plates, as well as things like screwdrivers and scissors. On my normal runs, in the past I’ve found wallets and puppies (both which I returned), loose change, $100 bills and one time an item of jewelry worth nearly $3,000. I turned that over to the Sheriff’s Department and it went unclaimed and six months later they gave it back to me.

I took a second run today with my dog Kirby. We encountered a lot of yards with underground fencing. What is scary about that is that the dogs will come charging at you right to the curb and then stop. But you don’t know they are going to stop, so you expect they are going to get to you. But typically there aren’t any signs to say the resident has this underground fencing so it is nerve wracking to guess if the dog is actually going to get to you. Today we had a large dog charge at us. Since the attack on my dog Zuzu many weeks back in this project, my heart is always in my throat when a dog runs at us. This dog came into the street near us, no owner in sight, but for some reason stopped just before it got to us and went home. I’ll add another red dot to my map, this makes nine times that dogs have came into the road and charged us. That is nine times too many.

I anticipate that I will finish this project this coming weekend.