18 miles in 2:23:33, 7:58/mi, HR 157. A grand trail running adventure today. Goal was to run the hill route I'd tried last week when I was stymied by snow in order to discover the long lost great circle route that would loop back and intercept my road up in the state forest area. Armed with my trusty Forerunner and a refilled bottle of Powerade, I set off. Encountered hostiles at mile 1  but managed to escape, only to be trailed for another 5 miles by one of the hostile's buddies.
Hit the hill where I'd been forced to turn around last weekend and this time the way was clear. Up 400' elevation gain in 0.5 miles, it was rough going. Some level spots let me catch my breath on the way up a total of 1000', with some drops and climbs sprinkled in along the way, most of them pretty steep. Forced into walk mode in a couple of particularly long climbs, but keep my pace reasonable given the terrain. Of course, in this grand adventure, all I had navigation-wise was a mental image of some poor overhead imagery that was dated, plus some topographic maps that did *not* show a connection between the two trail systems. But I knew there *had* to be a way to get there. At mile 10, I wasn't so sure. At mile 11, I was dreading turning around and retracing my steps, my legs pretty well trashed, running because I knew if I was right, most of the rest of my run would be a nice long gradual downhill. I hit the retrace route button, then decided to go for another mile before turning around. Mile 11.5, eureka! I found that the trail I was on was in fact the forest road as I'd hoped, and that I'd managed to find a new (but tough) long running route. Unfortunately, hitting the retrace route button on Garmin messed with
my record of the workout, but at least I got the splits and distance,
if not the elevation past the 12 mile mark. 16.3 miles total, with an extra 1.7 at the end of the loop to round things up to 18. Felt more like a 24-26 mile effort given some of the slopes I tackled, but truly a fun adventure today in our beautiful countryside on a wonderful day.
Asics GT 2120 - 149.83 miles. | 