Fitness trail coming to Ogden River Parkway
In this rendering provided by the GOAL Foundation, Outdoor enthusiasts will start seeing some new exercise equipment to try out along the Ogden River Parkway.
In this rendering provided by the GOAL Foundation, Outdoor enthusiasts will start seeing some new exercise equipment to try out along the Ogden River Parkway.
In this rendering provided by the GOAL Foundation, Outdoor enthusiasts will start seeing some new exercise equipment to try out along the Ogden River Parkway.
Ogden Mayor Mike Caldwell leads people along the River Parkway Friday, May 2, 2014. (DYLAN BROWN/Standard-Examiner)
OGDEN — Outdoor enthusiasts will start seeing some new exercise equipment to try out along the Ogden River Parkway. There will be nine fitness stations and the first is already under way and should be complete by this weekend’s Ogden Marathon.
The funding from the trail comes from two grants received by the Get Out and Live, an Ogden non-profit agency that sponsors the Ogden Marathon and many other outdoor endeavors in the Ogden area. Intermountain Healthcare gave a grant of $25,000 and RAMP granted $64,000 to the project this year. The total project is estimated at $110,000, but the $89,000 is a big enough push to get started on the project, said Kim Bowsher, spokeswoman for the GOAL Foundation.
The project is the brainchild of members of the Junior League of Ogden. Bowsher, also a member of the Junior League, said the group does a project each year with area students called “Kids in the Kitchen” to teach people how to cook and eat healthy.
The group wanted to do something more to get kids moving. They approached the GOAL Foundation with their idea and they loved it. “They have the Young Runners group and they want to give them more visibility and more options with their group,” Bowsher said of the GOAL Foundation.
They also worked with a local architect that had been trying to make improvements to another fitness trail without much luck. The architect’s group was happy to jump on board with the project.
There will be nine stations with varying levels of difficulty. They will start at the base of the parkway on the east and then loop around the Big D Park, Bowsher said. Course stations were designed by Carbon Architects with guidance by the physical therapy team at Intermountain Healthcare. Carbon Architects has also done quite a bit of in-kind work, Bowsher said.
A groundbreaking was held recently to get things started.
“Our goal is to have the first station up and running before the (Ogden) marathon,” Bowsher said. The marathon is scheduled for Saturday, May 16.
She knows no one will really stop and do fitness while running, but they do want people to know it is there, she said. “So many people think GOAL is just about the marathon, but there is much more that the Foundation does,” she said.
As far as the Junior League goes, Bowsher is thrilled to see everything coming together.
“It’s really great to see a community come together to do something good,” she said.
