When the GPS gets stuck, just keep going

SmartCoach, my new best frenemy, told me to go run 8 miles at a 12:35 pace today. Since I'd been shooting for ~1.5 minutes faster than what SC tells me, I wasn't too worried when RunKeeper told me I was running an 11:34 pace, I figured I would pick it up as I warmed up. For these long runs, I figured since I was getting tired of campus, the evil NC Art Museum hills and near where I live, it was time to go on an ADVENTURE!

I've hiked quite a few miles of trails at Umstead State Park and the only time I'd really been on the bike and bridle packed gravel trails was to cut short a hike but there are lots of races that go through there, so it was time to go try it out!

I parked near the trail heads on the bottom of that map piece. We took the orange dots east to the road, then onto Reedy Creek Lake Trail. I'd read somewhere that the Airport Overlook was 3.1 miles, so I knew somewhere after that, we'd have to turn around. I part spaced out and part didn't want to have the voice in my head telling me how fast or slow I was or how much more I had to run.

Ignorance was total bliss! Huck and I passed these two guys running up a hill and smiling when we weren't even 1 mile in. Crazy guys, smiling while going up a hill! Except... we figured out why they were smiling! They were all DONE with hills! Seriously... I'd heard people say some crazy things about these hills, so I should've been more clued in, but this hill just kept winding around and going up and for every crest, there would be 2 seconds of downhill, NO FLATS and then more hill!

At 3 miles in, Huck got a call from his roommate explaining that he'd locked himself out and he needed to do X, Y, Z and etc. Huck explained we were 3 miles in and thus 3 miles away from a car, but we still had more to do. It was at this point that the GPS app stopped, which we didn't realize for who knows how long. Having never been on the trail, I wasn't certain of the random open space as the airport overlook, sooo we kept running. We were about to just say "enh, screw it!" when we saw a billboard shelter thing with a map in it, so we ran to that and realized we'd gone to the park's edge! Yeah, we ran to the right edge of that map slice which connects to a county park and a Cary greenway, definitely past 4 miles.

I was flat out deliriously happy at this point and both Huck and I turned on our GPS apps so we could figure out the "out" from the "back." Plus, we knew that all those hills we'd had to climb up the first 2 miles were going to be nice easy downhills to cruise down! ... except we forgot about that first hill, the one where we cruised down and Mr. Happy smiled up :/ I tried, oh how I tried, to kill that hill, especially since I know next Saturday I get a 1 mile uphill 8 miles in to my race but when we rounded a corner and Huck's "motivational" gasp was "yeah, don't look up" because we still didn't see the top of the hill, I winced and realized I couldn't quite keep my breath :( Some other runners passed us (sad face) and I had this "enh, good for you" which is neeever a good thing!...until we saw the pavement, our agreed upon stopping point. We kicked our butts from walking into "dear heaven, let us just be done" with a little friendly sprint race to see who would be first through the gate and we were DONE! (Huck won, which isn't all that surprising- he's faster/stronger but doesn't have the pink shoes like me ;D )

The final "back" stats were 4.3 miles at 10:53 pace, 500 calories burned for moi. For an 8 mile 12:35 long slow run, my 8.7 at sub-11 has me deliriously happy! Ice, NSAIDs and compression sleeves are my best friends, especially since the muscles around my butt are sore! Guess that's how you gain/lose a butt, going up those hills?! Good thing I got my interview pants taken in this week!

Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd