Kayla and I sometimes run together again; she's training for the Lincoln Half-Marathon this Saturday and I'm sort of on-again, off-again training for the Illinois Full at the end of April. This run turned out to be interesting.. it all started when we hit the trail on a somewhat nice afternoon from near our house. We take a few side streets and get on what is mostly a bike path; well, we cruised a few miles down that and Kayla wanted to head back. I knew I wanted to go further, so I stayed on and said I was going to end up around 10 miles; which is no longer a huge deal.
I had my trusty Garmin 405 to track the distance and time. Well, all I had before the Garmin was mapmyrun.com and an idea of where I was on the run; in addition to that, the route somewhat changed because of an epic mall sized Scheel's being built. This run, I figured was 10.. maybe 11 miles. Well, I just got past Scheel's... and... my GPS fading battery and all alerted me that I was over 5 miles already. I could:
1. turn around and go back, running 10 miles or
2. continue like a machine to the landmark I picked
Keep these few things in mind: I had beer battered tofu (amazing), coconut bacon (amazing) and a potato for lunch. I didn't eat when I got home. I had no water with me and typically don't drink enough during the day. It was cold out, and I didn't have a hat or gloves.
So, if you guessed #2.. you were right. I continued to run. Amazing, I made it to the halfway point and looked down and the GPS 7.26 miles. Do the math, the return trip is just as far: 14.52 miles. So, I put my head down and ran along the lonely trail only being passed by a random biker as the cold cut into my ears and my hands. The sweat on top of my head turned into a nice frost and my hands full of sweat and locked into a running position remained that way until the bitter end. Around mile 11 I really started to feel my lips dry and a sense of "You're an Idiot" took center stage as my running mantra. I ran to the beat of it; it didn't really help. I could have stopped for water at the local Sonic with about 2 miles left, but at that point.. I just wanted to get home. My IT bands were about to split down the middle, my knee hurt a tad, my lips were chapped and my hands were slowly turning to frost like grass in the morning.
Oh, and sometime in there my GPS decided that 26% battery life when I left wasn't enough to make it through the entire run. Really? I may have to email Garmin about this, 26% battery zapped in less than 1.5 hours? That doesn't seem right since, according to their site, it says a fully charged one should last 8 hours of use time. Do the math: that's 2 hours per 25% of battery. Hmmmm..
Against these insurmountable odds, I managed to make it home. I walked up to the back door where I saw Kayla sitting, warmly on the floor eating supper and Schatzi in the window watching me. I walked in and Kayla laughed then asked if I was okay. All I could say was.. "14.5 miles. Can you take my watch off for me; I can't move my fingers."
Next time, maybe, I'll be a bit more prepared (or let common sense take over)
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