Craptastic

I was supposed to be running Color Me Rad today.  The girl who bought my bib had offered to sell it back because she couldn't make the race at the new date...and I wrote back to her twice after she offered and never heard back...ah well.  Such is life.  After two weeks where my mileage hit a combined 6k while I was on vacation...I likely needed an actual long run instead.  Besides - I have the Kaleidoscope colour run in September that I am running with my niece (she wanted to run another race with me and I bought it for her as a birthday gift).

Unfortunately, I overslept when good sleep eluded me until my alarm went off...so I had a late start.  And then a breakfast snuggle with Doodle...but by 8, I was on the road to Glenmore Reservoir...

I had one worry about my long run today...meet my hammock injury

The day hubby brought my vacation hammock home, I had some balance issues and ended up , er, not on the hammock...and my calf had connected really hard with a protrusion on the frame.  Every step I've taken for a few days has felt like a miniature charlie horse.  

BUT nothing was going to stop me from running today.  My cold is done, my vacation is almost over and I REALLY needed a long long long long long run but was going to have to settle for 15-16k to clear my head.

I started on my way and it was like running torturously uphill right from the start.   At 1k, I considered turning around.  But the lower path at the reservoir was so pretty I decided to keep going.

But I had the thought again at 2k and 3k and 4k...well, you get the idea.  My hair had come out of the bun I had put it into and every time the ponytail smacked against my back, I wanted to kill someone.

At one point, just as I entered the shade of the Weaselhead, I saw my first wildlife...a teeny little mouse scurried across the path a foot in front of me.  At least mice in the wild don't freak me out like when I see them in a house...

Shortly after, I saw ACTUAL wildlife...a deer was out roaming in the field

I don't think I have EVER seen actual wildlife at the reservoir before (aside from squirrels and chipmunks, that is).

The day was shaping up to be a warm one and I was becoming more and more miserable with each stupid step I took.  I had to start looking for fun things to keep me moving...

The promise of construction ahead showed promise to be an interesting thing

Though this new addition to the Weaselhead signage held a fair bit more promise...I guess two howitzer shells being found qualifies as being worth warning the public about...

I chatted and laughed with a cyclist over this new addition.  Every time I saw another one, I just chuckled to myself...that helped pass the time a bit.
 
At 6k, I came up to the construction...

and then a strange thing happened...at exactly 6k, my garmin made the strangest bleep and then flashed the Garmin logo on the screen...followed by a warning "If you want your run to save, press and hold reset now"

egads.

So I hit reset...and restarted my run...

Aside from a couple of quick photo stops, I had yet to take a walk break...and I didn't plan to. It's not like I was going nearly fast enough to warrant one.

I was really overheating by the time I came out of the Weaselhead...honestly, the best part of this run was when the sun went behind this cloud.

I made one short pitstop at the canoe club to use the potty and then stretched my calf a bit...it was starting to really hurt and I could tell my left leg was compensating because my knee was starting to grumble and my left shoulder was tensing up.  I just wanted the run to end already.

I kept running along and soon I was out along Glenmore and could feel the end in sight.

By the time I got into the Glenmore Landing parking lot, I was finished - both the run and mentally.

That, my friends, was one super craptastic run.  I am happy my long run next week is my first 5 Peaks Trail race.  I need some trails...

The rest of the garmin geekery

On an up note - when I got home, I stumbled upon the bag of stuff from WDW Marathon that I still haven't found a home for and remembered that the shoelaces in the race package were the exact orange as the ones the dog chewed on my teal kinvaras...one problem solved.  So I laced both of my shoes with new laces...

Now that I have gotten a terrible training run under my belt - maybe the rest of my training cycle can be awesome.   I really really hope so.