It’s been a while since I’ve been on a run that was longer than 5 miles. In fact, I think my last looong run was the Orlando Half Marathon in December. Saturday would be my first long run in 2013.
On Saturday morning I woke up at 4:45 AM and headed out to our meeting spot for 10 9 miles. I was a bit rusty on the prepping for a long run, and was running around my house frantically trying to charge my borrowed Garmin for 5 minutes, find my gloves, fill my water bottle, etc. I almost forgot to eat something, but thankfully grabbed a banana on my way out the door.
As soon as I walked out my front door I knew I needed another layer. But cutting it close on time, I decided to not turn around and convinced myself that I would warm up with the run. Plus, I had found my gloves, which are key to keeping warm.
I got to our meet-up spot feeling proud of myself for actually being a couple minutes early. I jumped out of my car and immediately started to hear jokes from the ladies on my timeliness. I laughed knowing I fully deserved all the jokes, while I struggled to find my zipper in the back of my running tights for my key.
Finally I turned around and asked the ladies if they could see my zipper and they both said, “No.” It suddenly occurred to me that my tights could be on backwards, so I checked my abdomen to see if the zipper was on the front side. Nope. Finally I stuck my hands down the back of my pants and there was my zipper. I had put my tights on inside out. Doh!
As the ladies stood there laughing at my inability to dress myself before a cup of coffee, I ran back into my car (which thankfully is roomy and has dark tinted windows) and redressed myself correctly.
Lesson Learned: Being on time for morning runs is not worth it if you have to redress yourself in the car when you get there. This can be timely, especially when wearing tights.
We set off for 10 miles, with some interesting twists to our usual routes. Because one of us was running the Lady Track Shack 5k that morning, we were running about 6 miles together before running Em to the start of the race.
The miles surprisingly came easily, but I think that’s because I was so cold. Running was the only thing keeping me warm, so for once I was looking forward to the beep at the end of our walk breaks.
Before I knew it, we were dropping off Em near the start line. Sue, who is the adventurous type, suggested we continue running towards the back of the start line (where the finish line was) and walk the trail through Mead Garden that would lead us back to the road we needed to be on. This route will now be deemed as “Sue’s Nature Hike.”
Our short hike was beautiful. We passed a little brook and even crossed a tiny bridge:
On Sue’s Nature Hike route through Mead Garden
I could’ve hiked through there forever if not for the fact that walking was causing my body to cool and being cold only made me want coffee. Alas, we made it to the gate where we could leave this oasis and finish our run so that I could drink said coffee, when we encountered a problem: the gate was locked.
Panic went through my head. The last time I climbed a fence this tall I was nearly arrested (we were in high school and we climbed over an airport fence… oh how naive we were pre-9/11). There was no way I could hoist myself up now. I made a note to start doing push-ups in case I ever need to climb a fence again, whilst running away from zombies or something (I watch too much Walking Dead).
Beth, who originates from the Garden State, suggested that we walk down length of the fence to see if there was any other way to escape get out. As we neared a clearing, Beth noted that the gate had enough space underneath for us to crawl under. I was freezing at this point and considering the option when she tested the gate to see if it too was locked and the gate swung wide open. Hoorah!
There was a police officer on the other side of the gate watching the entirety of this unfold with amusement. He was manning the 5k, which was yet to start, so he had some time to watch us. Can you imagine if we had all crawled under that gate just to find out that it was unlocked?? Ha ha ha ha …
We set off to warm up complete our run. A few minutes later I took a short walk break to observe this beautiful site:
This warrants a short walk break for observation.
Watching the sun rise is always one of my favorite parts of running in the morning!
Three of us opted to cut our run short so that we could get coffee in our systems STAT. Hence, our 10-miler became a 9-miler. A glorious and adventurous 9-miler at that. 🙂
Do you ever find yourself with your clothes on backwards before that cup of morning coffee?
I Sweat Pretty 