All runners have a favorite road to run on, or at least one that will stick out when you think back about your training…and mine happens to be Merrifield Road.
Located just south of Dallas Baptist University (only a 2-3 min jog from campus), Merrifield Road is the hilliest route in the metroplex. Since my days as a collegiate athlete at DBU (2003-2005) until now I’ve been running up those hills on the way out and cruising down them on the way back.
But, it’s not just the hills that make Merrifield Road stand out to me. IT’S THE BEAUTY OF THE ROAD and the HISTORY OF THE ROAD. I would be willing to bet that 90% of my greatest workouts came on Merrifield Road and at one point in time I probably was running on Merrifield 6 out of 7 days of the week and most of those days twice.
In the summer as you start up Merrifield before the sun rises you run what seems to be a lonely road…darkness hides the trees and the beautiful fields, but as you get to the top of Merrifield (~4.5 miles out) the sun starts to come alive…and then, on the way back you can see the beautiful green grass, fields of corn and wheat, and the tree-lined road.
In the past few years I’ve gotten away from running Merrifield. My age and injuries have slowed me down, but my goal is to revisit Merrifield more times in 2018 than I did in 2017.
Phillips Running 