Sick. Physical. Effort.

I have always been really good at math. In eighth grade, the teacher would correct everyone's tests off of my paper. I got in the 700's on my math SAT. I can add my groceries up as I shop and always come out within $5 on 6 to 8 bags of groceries. I'm not bragging. I'm just trying to show that math is one of my strong suits. 

So what happened?

Sunday's run... 12 miles. I picked an X-treeeeemely hilly run because ... because I like extremes.

I've done this run before... a million years ago. It's pieced together off of regional park trail maps. I added up all the parts once and came up with a tiny bit over 12 miles. Perfect. Or so I thought. I should've checked my math.

Here's the map of The Beast....

you can move the map around and zoom in and out to see the whole thing

View Larger Map

It looks so far when I see it on a map. It's an out-and-back with a loop on the end (point B). And 12 miles is far.


But 13.1 is farther.

One point one miles is not a huge difference. Except mentally. I realized when my Garmin beeped at 6 miles, and I had not arrived at the farthest point from the start, that I was in for more than I had planned. Throw in the fact that I was in the middle of The Widowmaker (aka Hill from Hell) and I can tell you I was a woman on the verge of something... and it wasn't pretty. (refer back to my f-bomb post...which was inspired partly by this run).

Elevation Profile of The Beast

This is a bonafide example of

sick.
physical.
effort.

I only wish the downhill had felt as noticeable as the uphill.

It was a gorgeous day and a gorgeous place... just hard to appreciate all that gorgeousness when in the middle of climbing hill after never-ending hill...

Here's the scene at 2.5 miles...beautiful rolling hills.

Naked trees at 3.5 miles.

Interestingly, when the going felt nearly insurmountably impossible, it was not the f-word that sprung to mind. My mind kept going to this amazing woman and her phrase... dream big. Thank you for that, Dorothy. 

8.7 miles in, I saw the funniest name for a bathroom door lock EVER.

And was so grateful for clean bathrooms and flushing toilets :)

My husband and I had set up for the family to meet me here, at what I thought would be the 8-mile mark. My math was off. And we had estimated my pace at 10-min miles. Ummm... a bit overly-optimistic. Even without the math screw-up, I knew after the first sllloooowwwww mile that they would be waiting.

I got to the meeting place later than we had planned. They went the flattering route and guessed that I had been running so fast that they had missed me... and they left. We missed each other by moments.

But....

Look what was waiting for me at the end!

Awesome kids greeting me at the finish!

and 

my super husband who let my sweaty self hug him :)

Distance: 13.1 miles
Time: 2:22:18
Avg. Pace: 10:52

And for those of you who enjoy hearing my charming voice, I have prepared a video. My plan was to reward myself at each mile completed by shooting a tiny snippet of video so you could see my surroundings and hear me gasping for air. That lasted for the first 6 miles. It is boring, and it required more effort to stop and start than seemed rewarding, so I scrapped that plan... and just uttered the f-word a few times. Not on camera.

I will continue to dream big.

But I might also sometimes use the f-word.