18 Miles Hurts

This week I missed a 9-mile run.
Mon: Taekwondo - cross training done
Tues: - 5 miler - done at the track with Chris & the kids
Wed: No TKD - attended the Lions Club Meeting
Thur: everyone was exhausted - we just hung out at the house and went to bed early
Fri: took Frank to the dentist, lunch with Chris at work, grocery shopping.... dates with the kids when Chris got out of work... no running....
Sat: 5 miler with Chris & the kids at the track
Sun: 18 miler... done!



The plan for today's run was to get to the start of the route by 7am. Somehow, I thought setting the alarm clock for 6:30 would get me to Ann Arbor in time. This plan was completely unrealistic - since it takes about 30 minutes to *get* to Ann Arbor, not counting the two times I hit the snooze bar, time to get dressed, eat breakfast, grab a cup of coffee, drive and park. The *actual* run start time was some time between 8:15 and 8:30am.

The temperature was about 52 when I started out. A full bottle of Gatorade in my running belt, 3 packs of gu/cliff shots, printed out maps in a ziplock, car key attached to pepper spray, and my cell phone in tow, I started out on 4th street towards Beakes. Beaks turns into Broadway when you cross over Depot St and the Gandy Dancer. From here, I took a left turn towards Argo Park and ran through my favorite trails next to the Huron River. The sun was shining through the trees and off the water - just beautiful. I passed other runners, walkers and a couple of bikers. I followed a wood planked bridge that ended up crossing to the other side of the Huron river.

Thank goodness there are public restrooms at the parks. About three miles in, I really really had to pee (too much coffee for breakfast!) Anyways - business taken care of - back to the running. Frankie called to let me to find out how many more miles I had to go. I told him 15 - he told me to sprint the rest so I could get home ;)

Trail run was over pretty quickly - 4 miles found me at Riverside park, coming up on UM Hospital. It's always important to plan your long runs past hospitals - you just never know when you may need one. This route would also take me past the VA hospital and St Joe's.

The b2b (border to border) route is a really well marked, continuous bike/running/etc trail from the west side of Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti. About every 3/4 mile is a new map, and lots of little b2b signs with arrows. Past Fuller Park, UM Hospital, soon I found myself on the east side of Mitchell Field. The b2b sign had two different ways to get to Gallup Park - a 1.25 mile route to the left, and a 1 mile route to the right. My path was the one to the right - of course!

Gallup Park was beautiful. Apparently there was a 5k earlier in the day. The race staff was cleaning up, and there were a bunch of race shirts on the tables. Looks like they didn't have the expected turn-out. More trail along the river and through fields and up along the Geddes Rd bridge.

Around the corner was Washtenaw Community College and St Joe's. WCC is building a new fitness center - nice facility, though not yet finished. Rounding the back of the hospital, I almost stepped on a set of keys on the trail. I picked them up and took them inside to the information desk. Hopefully the person missing keys will go look there! I was also hoping I was close to my turn-around point. My car seemed awfully far away, my Gatorade was gone (refilled the bottle with h2o at the hospital) and parts of my legs were really starting to ache.

Checking the map - apparently I made a wrong turn and ran the *long* way around St Joe's. The route from mapmyrun was over by a quarter of a mile, and with the long route around St Joe's, I ran to Eastern's staduim, and turned back towards Ann Arbor.

The car was really really far away. The last 7 miles seemed really long.