Began at the southern terminus of the FKT trail - Barrett Road and Valley Parkway, ran up to the northern point at the Detroit Ave/Valley Parkway intersection and back.
It was a sunny day and started off not too warm.
The trail is paved and easily followable, only one-two places were questionable because the trail made a Y and you had to choose a direction, but referencing the FKT map easily answered any directional questions i had.
I am not one for pavement, but this wasn't too bad, lots of wildlife and things to see, some rolling hills, it isn't just a flat straight path... which is what i was fearing.
I drove and ran this alone. I carried~3L of water because i wasn't sure of the water situation along the route, turns out that there are bathrooms and a few water fill stations along the way. I also had a banana and some sour bear gummies from Germany.. or Croatia.. international sour gummy candies are far superior those in the US.
Around mile 8 a dog, i suppose, 'lost it's cookies,' because of what looked to be milk and too many treatos. Other than that, there weren't many 'trail hazards.' MANY bicyclists were on the trail and 98% of them DID announce prior to passing, which was nice. This was much to my surprise, seeing as on other trails in other NEOhio locations, this is a MUCH smaller %. Alot of them did travel at a pretty fast rate of speed, on the hike n bike trail, which, if they are going that fast, they could just as easily be on the road.
The trail is MOSTLY shaded. Some of the spots that are open are around picnic/parking areas. This day was particularly not great for my personal asthma. Between the temperature rise, and the long bouts of sun exposure, you can tell by me pace log where i finally gave into walking, to protect myself from any issues - i did see a few ambulances treating some persons along the way, although they were close, i didn't want to get too personal with them this day. :)
The air did become pretty thick with direct sun, temperature jump, the 2-3 weeks of smoke from the Canadian wildfires, as well as the picnic BBQs and casual trail-side smokers.
Some dogs were off leash, but thankfully few and far between, it was very location specific, but most owners did follow leash laws.
It was entertaining running along a golf course for a bit. The many river crossings/bridges were fun. There were more tiny gnats than i expected. Overall the trail surface was safe and level, most bumps were spray painted to bring caution/attention to them.
There are alot of parking and picnic spots along Valley Parkway - great for a weekend outing. Alot of cruising cars too.
I would suggest running any part of this if you are in the area. I won't be running this FKT again, because the pavement isn't for me, there are trails (non-pavement) so i may investigate those.
Cheers, let's hope for no 'loose cookies' on the pavement in the future!