My Sunday Detour..

I had quite the impromptu adventure happen yesterday, so I thought I'd share. For my marathon training, my "Big Runs" are Sundays. I was up to 12 miles yesterday and I set out at 8am for what I thought would be a less than 2 hour run. 12 miles is also a distance I had run before, so I confidently grabbed a cliff bar for breakfast and headed out the door. I decided not to bring my watch because I didn't want to be checking the time too much, it can turn into a bad habit that makes time go more slowly. Besides, I had my Nike+ which would tell me everything at the end (distance, time, pace, even calories).

For my route, I had gone to my new favorite site where people submit running routes all over the country - http://www.usatf.org/routes/. I went to my route starting place and realized that I had made a mistake. I had just bought new shoes, therefore, did not have the Nike chip to enable Nike+ to work. Crap. No watch, no Nike+. Well at least I printed out my map. I left it in the car, but no big whoop, "I think I can remember the path." Famous last words.

I was running and got to a place where I couldn't remember which way to go... I just picked a direction and went with it. Well I picked wrong, so after a quick loop around a camping ground, I chuckled to myself, got back on the path and went on my merry way. "How silly of me," I thought, "okay so I added another 1/2 mile."

Well I kept on going... I had brought some Gu, so I had that to give me some extra energy. About 5 miles later I hit another place where I wasn't sure which way to go. So I just picked. Wrong again! This time I ran further off the course and found myself surrounded by water. How the heck did I do this to myself again? Am I going to have to call Nate? By this time, I was exhausted. What was funny before, now made me want to cry. I was FAR off this time and wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get back. After a quick talk with myself I realized all I could do was keep going. I mean I am going to have to run this distance at some point anyways. So I kept on going. I found my mistake and got back on track. There was one big hill ahead of me, but at least I knew where I was.

Well, eventually I did make it back. I stopped and stretched a few minutes and then headed back to my car. When I got in, I saw it was 11am!!! I had been out for 3 hours. Given I did stop and stretch and there was one point when I walked to try and find a path (when i was surrounded by boats and water), but still that's a long time.

I can only guess, but I think my 12 mile run turned into a 15 mile excursion. When I got home my roomie, Erin, said she was giving me 5 more minutes before she was calling Nate. Nate, who couldn't stop laughing at me and saying things like, "You can't run 15 miles on a CLIFF BAR," lightened my mood. AND, like the good boyfriend he is, knew just what to do - take me to lunch.