We're Lost

One of the many things runners - long distance runners anyways - will grudgingly admit to, is that when your watch says .5 or .6 or .7...it's hard not to just finish that one last mile. Also, when we've committed to 12 miles, if we have managed to cover more than half the distance, we are now fully committed to a full 12 miles. 11.5 won't do, 11 miles isn't good enough, forget about 11.98, it ain't gonna happen. It's gotta be 12.

Saturday night, when everyone else was going to the Rodeo in Sisters, enjoying the last of the heat for the day, BBQ'ing and having fun, Jamie and I scheduled our big run for the day.

We have a half marathon in two weeks so this is the last "big" run until the race. We were supposed to end up doing 14 miles the day of my sister's wedding, but I was at my sister's wedding (duh) and Jamie thought running 14 miles was a terrible idea. I just wanted to see if I could do it. You know, a baby step towards the full I'm 90% sure I'm going to do in early September.

My new job is exactly 2 miles from Jamie's house, so to get my extra mileage in, I ran over to meet her. I was on board and idealistic for my 14 miler, and Jamie was solidly committed to 12 miles. Three miles in (so five for me), Jamie has an equipment crisis and we stand in the road considering calling her husband to come get her to fix it while I ran on and had her meet me down the road.

He was at least 20 minutes out.

"My work is just down the road, we could go there." I suggested. I had run the 2 miles to her house and then we turned around and retraced my steps: at this point we were a mile away from my work. "It's 20 minutes if we walk it, and if we can manage a jog it's less. We'd get there before he could get here."

"You're okay with that? I feel bad..." she said. I told her no worries, but I wasn't clocking anything we were walking for that mile. Breaks were one thing, walking that far on purpose is quite another. So we trekked the mile back to work, jogging when possible, but mostly walking.

Crisis averted, we turned around again. We decided to do an out and back, 4.5 miles out, turn around and run back to my car in the parking lot at work, where I would give her a ride back to her house.

Mile nine was the longest mile I've ever run in my life. It was never ending. We finally made it to the turnaround at mile ten (Jamie's mile 8) and practically cheered. Okay, we thought, four more miles and we're golden.

A mile and a half down the road we passed a turn off and had a brief argument.

"I thought we turned here?" I said.

"No, no, it's down the road," Jamie insisted.

"Should we get out the map on our phones?" I asked, unconvinced.

"No, I know exactly where we are. Collins [the road we're on] turns into Pinehurst [the road the distillery is on], we already made the turn." Jamie countered.

Dubious, but aware that my sense of direction is severely lacking, and knowing that my thyroid disorder has been giving me some very interesting short-term memory situations, I agreed and we ran on.

Three quarters of a mile later:
"Okay, Jamie, I definitely do not remember that flag," I said as we trotted past a huge, festive, bunting banner strung on a gate. "We are going the wrong way."

"I don't remember it either, but I'm pretty sure that's our turn off up there." She said, unconvincingly.

"No way," I disagreed and got the phone out. Sure enough, we had missed our turn. Going back would have taken longer at that point, so we continued on. We reached the 14 mile marker (her 12 mile marker) and we checked the map again. One mile to the distillery from where we were. Jamie wanted to call her husband to come get us, I bullied her into running the last mile.

"By the time he gets in the car and finds us, we could have just run the mile, between the traffic from the rodeo and the light," I pointed out, as it was now 9 PM and while not dark, it was definitely not light anymore. She agreed grudgingly.

I ran 15.03 miles on Saturday night. It took me 2 hours and 48 minutes, averaging an 11:14 mile. It's been two days and my knees are still killing me.

I can't wait to do it again.

Ciao,
kc