The sky was beautiful at the start, but I was heading towards those clouds off to the right.
It was looking a bit ominous at mile 7.5
Mile 9.5 – thankfully the rain held off until I finished
The simple out and back is the easiest run. You just go to the halfway point and turn around. But what about the mini out and back that is part of a longer run? Or the double out and back? For most people this is no big deal. For me? Well I seem to be a bit mathematically challenged when it come to accurately calculating the proper distance.
Sometimes this necessitates a short little addition to your run when you arrive a what was to be “the end.” Other times it means you arrive at your goal distance but you are nowhere near the end of your run. This is what happened to me on my long run this week.
I had actually mapped out a course. One that started at a higher elevation than it would end, included lots of hills, but with more down than up (thankfully my husband was kind enough to drop me off). The route I mapped out was exactly 18 miles. Perfect!
But mid run, because of traffic, I decided to detour to a bike trail. So I had to make some quick calculations to re-route myself to my car. So here was my calculation: I left the bike trail approximately a half a mile from my car and I was at 14.75 miles, thus needing 3.25 to complete the run. I calculated that if I headed away for a mini out and back I should go 1.6 miles and I should get close to my goal. HaHa! As I write this I realize one mistake…the decision to turn around at 16.6. That added a bit! But it was worse than that… when I hit 18 miles I wasn’t close. Damn! I made it to my car at 18.9, but then I had to jog around for a tenth of a mile because who stops at 18.9?
The good news is that my 19 mile run felt great.
Was this helpful? No, but it was pretty funny.
Another fun thing? My Garmin thinks I’ve been climbing stairs, and sent me a notification to say that I should go up stairs as well as down them. Funny!
Here’s my training log for the past week. http://Final Surge Training
Less than a month until race day! This week I’ll be running a fitness assessing half marathon. I haven’t raced yet this year so I’m looking forward to it.
Happy training.
