every day should be like this

So I’ve maybe mentioned before that I’m training for a half-marathon, right? In about another month and a half? Yeah, that rings a bell with some of you.

The normal routine is, a half hour run on Tuesday, a half hour run on Thursday, and a longer run on Sunday. At this point in the game, the longer run is alternating between about four miles, and an actual longer distance: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, then back to 13 miles. Tomorrow’s run is going to be 12 miles.

Except I forgot one thing.

Sunday, July 4, 9:30 am: The Saxton’s River Fourth of July Parade. There is no way I’m going to miss it. It’s supposed to be un-freaking-believably hot on Sunday, so an afternoon run is out of the question. And get up before dawn to run 12 miles, get home, shower, eat, and get to the parade on time? Who do you think I am, cousin Emily?

I could always do the long run on Monday, which is what I did a couple of weeks ago. But nooooo….I wanted to get ‘er done.  So I did the run this morning.

The plan was, do a 4.5 mile loop – a mile of which is an out-and-back at the far end of the loop. Swap out water bottles at the mailbox. And then do a different, 6.5 mile loop to bring it up to 11 miles…and tack on a little tangential one mile detour to get up to 12 miles.

I headed out just past 8:00 am and pretty soon realized that I was going to need a bathroom break soon. And not my normal, side of the road behind a tree bathroom break, either. Sigh. So I cut the first loop short by not doing the mile out-and-back bit at the far end of the loop. So I’m down a mile. Got home. Private bathroom stuff. Headed out to the mailboxes, swapped out the water, and set out for the longer loop.

Now the longer loop is lots of fun, because – after a two mile connecting bit, it involves this:

A loop, that starts at that green circle and goes south, and up a BIG HILL.

Can you see all those contour lines we’re crossing?

This is a serious hill. It’s about a half mile long, so, not that long, but it’s steep, varying from a 3% grade to a whopping 11% grade.

How do I know these things? Through the magic of the internet, that’s how.

So I’m panting up this hill. I get to the top of it, and there, on my right, is Livewater Farm. And I kid you not, a Jersey heifer kicked up her heels and ran with me for about 30 feet. Made me laugh out loud.

The road levels off for a half mile before the sharp left turn to go back along South Valley Road. This is maybe my favorite part: this section is dirt road with woods on the left and a long meadow on the right. Let’s just go to satellite so you can appreciate this -

Here’s that same aerial view, but showing the trees and fields.

Instead of a half mile of level, and a a half mile of steep descent, this section is a gentle downhill the whole way. The view is just fantastic. The day is glorious.

By now I’m in my seventh mile. My favorite mile. I don’t know why – I think I just kick into a new gear around then. And I’m thinking about how to make up for the lost mile at the beginning of the run, and I suddenly realize that I don’t quite remember a couple of details of how I’m going to get up to 12 miles.

So when I get back to that green circle, where ordinarily I’d head back toward home, I just spontaneously decide to do this loop again.

Which means running up that 11% grade hill again. The whole time I’m going up this hill, I’m doing the math in my head. I don’t have mile markers, I’m not wearing a Garmin. All I know is my typical pace on these long runs – a little over 11 minute miles, when you factor in the fact that I walk for a minute every six minutes. I last ran 11.35 miles in 2 hours, 6 minutes…I need another mile…I started at 8:11 a.m.…take out the eight minutes in the bathroom…OK, so that means I need to keep going until 10:35 a.m.

I didn’t have a clear sense of where I would BE at 10:35 a.m. but I was hoping it wouldn’t be too far from home. 

At 10:35 a.m. I had just entered the village of West West – a half mile from our front door. Whew. I went online later and mapped it all out and whaddaya know, 12 miles EXACTLY. Through some miracle, it’s all worked out, even though my pace was slower than normal, and I’m going to blame that on running up that hill twice.

I spent the rest of the afternoon inserting food in my food hole, and reading:

Tomorrow: parade. Note to self: bring camera. Must satisfy the legions of blog fans.