A 5 mile detour.

*I haven’t been blogging much on the weekend lately, but I just had to get this one out there…hysterical, really. In hindsight, anyway. Enjoy!**

I woke up this morning and said to M…man, I’m so glad I’m not running 12.5 miles this morning like Jess and Scott are! (while I did really enjoy my half marathon training, I am loving not having a ‘scheduled’ mileage to run and no ‘long runs’ either, just long enough – 6-7 at most – to feel great!).

(that will become quite ironic as we’ll later find out…)

It was a simply gorgeous morning for a run, hit about 82 degrees today – unheard of in October – and was about 60 when we set out, and the air was a perfect temperature for my finicky lungs. I was wearing my ‘I heart sweat’ top a la Ali on the Run and was feeling really good about the run. I even told M I thought we were for sure in for a good run (for ME to say that is huge, since I usually get a little anxious…something I’m working on!).

Off we went on our favorite 6-ish mile route. The sun was out, my lungs were feeling good. A little tight at times, but I got through the spots where I usually walk after a hill (go me!) and we kept trucking. At the fork in the road where we usually bear right towards the last half of our run, I suggested we bear left and go a slightly different way back (that, theoretically, would take us parallel to the road we usually run on, and we’d take a right up a side street to cut back to the end of our route).

That was mistake #1.

This route was so pretty, we were really happy with the detour and kept going, admiring some great houses, daydreaming about the ones we’d love to ‘have’ (ya know, cuz if we walked up to their front door and said ‘can we have your house?’ they’d *of course* say yes!), etc. I kept looking for the side street I thought would take us back home, estimating approximately how far we’d run parallel to our regular route. I never saw another road, so we kept going, puzzled. Figured there must be a loop back around, because naturally, why wouldn’t there be? Right?

This was mistake #2.

We kept going. Bore right onto a street I hadn’t heard of, and M pulled out his GPS on his phone (he wanted to go left, for the record, which still would have been wrong. Just saying.). He found where we were in relation to home, and thought we should turn back, because we weren’t going the right way. And I saw up ahead a road that said [our street name] Junction Road. I figured well, duh, that should mean it is the JUNCTION to our street, right? RIGHT?!

This was mistake #3.

We kept going, to my insistence. M was shaking his head and thought we were going the wrong way. I heard highway noise, and figured we WERE in the right direction since our place is near-ish the highway.

This was mistake #4.

We kept going, and going, and going. Until M finally pulled his GPS out again to see where we were. Um, yeah. We were in a huge circular industrial park and were literally just running the perimeter of it, and would end up in a big circle. NOT home.  We ran 4.5 miles OUT of our way, rather than home. And the only way back? Backtracking another 4.5 miles to home.

This was mistake #5. Fail. Fail. Fail.

I was not a happy camper. I was bitching and moaning and being a ‘sally’ as M called me. And I was, I fully admit that. But then I realized, well, ya know what? We are out here, it’s a gorgeous day, and I am actually running pretty good, so let’s just make the best of it, shall we?

And that we did. We did some run/walking at points, because honestly, my back and hamstrings were on fire. We had not brought water or any shot blox because we were anticipating a 6 mile run…not this huge detour of a run that we ended up at.

Almost two hours later, we walked in the door and collapsed. Downed water. Started to laugh at our monster fail. A 5 mile detour. Our grand total ‘6 mile run’ turned int0 an 11.11 mile run!! Hello, long ass run I totally wasn’t prepared for (and now makes that statement of ‘man, I’m glad I am not running 12.5 miles today a tad bit ironic, no?!)

But hey, I guess it proves that I still got it, and that half marathon re-do I keep talking about may not be that far in the future. And it also means I’m going to thoroughly enjoy the rest of this evening (after a fun afternoon apple picking and a short trip to the mall!). Hope you got a laugh out of this…and enjoy the rest of your weekends. Cheers, friends!