Running in Hinton

Although I've now run races in 3 states and Washington D.C. including Marathons and trail runs in remote places the bulk of my running takes place in Hinton, WV. Which coincidentally is where I was born and where I now work.
Hinton is the county seat of Summers County and was established in 1873 but was not chartered until 1897. Hinton was named for a prominent lawyer named John Hinton and the husband of Avis Gwinn Hinton, pioneer, who owned the land upon which the city of Hinton is located. Hinton is a railroad town that went through a tremendous building boom from 1890 to 1920. Those days are now long gone and Hinton remains a quaint town that is slowly evolving with the times.
Hinton is where two spectacular rivers meet the New and the Greenbrier. Since it is along the river most of my running does occur on "flat" terrain. However, all one needs to do is to turn toward the mountains away from the rivers to find hills. It's not hard to get in a speed workout on the flat or tackle one of the adjacent mountains that climb 1000 or more feet in just a mile or two.

Most of the time, I run alone but I always enjoy bringing a friend along. On this particular jaunt around Hinton my friend KT joined me. As shown in the photo below we were getting ready to embark on a n early May run.
One of the terrain features I almost always climb is the Avis bridge (shown below). This is a relatively small hill about a half mile long with a level spot in the middle but it is always a good workout when thrown in at the end of a 4 or 6 mile run.
My usual loop is a 4.3 mile loop that covers about 75% of Hinton. Sometimes I modify this into a 6 or 7 mile loop that pretty much encompasses most of the town. I enjoy running up the hill to the top of the dam (shown below) and looking out over the beautiful Bluestone Lake.
Many times I will run errands while I'm out running like on this particular run where KT had to hit the bank... I mean make a deposit at the bank.
When I'm finishing up my run it usually means I'm going to be running through downtown and by the courthouse as shown below.

All in all it's a good place to run. In most places there are decent sidewalks and the cars (and their drivers) seem to move along at a slow enough pace that I feel safe. You can tailor your run through the "busier" parts of town which is what I like to do or go out on a more remote single lane road. You can cross the two rivers during your run and watch the fisherman hunt for bass along the grassy patches below the dam. For some reason I never seem to get tired of the running here and it's actually where I performed my debut run. This run was from my office to the Long John Silvers (1 mile) way back in November 2002. I had to walk back...