Running by moonlight

One thing I need to mention. I'm getting burnt out. I think I'm doing more cross training and weight training than I did last time, which I'm sure in the long run will be good for me, but it's exhausting. Almost every night there's something to do. And still 2-1/2 months of training left. I cherish the 'rest' days so I can just walk Bams and then do nothing! Okay, okay, enough whining.

I decided to do my long run tonight since I'll be out of town this weekend and then I won't have to worry about it. Tina agreed to come with me, that way she can go do her volunteer work at the Marine Mammal Center and see the cutie Stellar sea lions.

We needed a 12 mile route and Tina plotted an 11.85 mile course through Coyote Hills. Close enough. Unfortunately, I couldn't start until 6:30 and we'd be pushing the darkness, but we decided to trudge on anyway. I warned her that she should bring her head lamp, but she didn't. Boy was I right on that one.

We were cruising right along at a decent pace for 10.5 miles. Yes, there were some hills, and some boring, long straight stretches, but all in all we were kicking butt. Well, about this time it started getting dark and it was more difficult to see which trail was which. At this point we need to leave the main road and do a loop around the marsh to get our required mileage. "Let's do the long way." Tina says. Um, okay. Well, I don't know if the map was wrong, or if we went the wrong way, but we ended up at a dead end. Crap. It's pretty dark by now and we decide to just turn around and head back to the main road. We finally make our way back to the road and decide to walk the rest of the way to the car. Okay, one more little issue. We were supposed to end up by the gate, but we ended up further back. So after running ourselves into exhaustion, we now have a 1 mile walk back to the car. Total run time...2:33. Total mileage....12.12. Add in another mile of walking and we were 2 tired puppies. We made it to the car about 9:30. Yes, 3 hours later. Whose idea was this again?? All in all the run was really tough, but we made good time. Especially since we were totally lost for a brief period.

I was so tired, I went home, showered, took 2 Tylenol PM caplets and went to bed without dinner. Hmm, this feels suspiciously like being punished.