Today's Long Run Recap

I haven't blogged here in a bit.  I think I finally got a handle on my new job so that won't be all-consuming of my time, so I have decided to post more often here, even if it's just a picture with a smarmy caption.

Cue picture:

There won't be a smarmy caption this time.  However, there will be a step-by-step rundown of the key events that occurred on this run, using a magical system called "the numbers below correspond to the numbers on the map above."

1. Around a mile into the run.  I want to stop because I ran 6 miles in 70 minutes the day before on the treadmill in minimalist shoes, and I can feel my right ankle protesting.  But I speed up because two dogs start chasing my ass down the road.

2. Reveling in the joy that is running head-on into cold winds.  Thinking about how much fun it will be to train through the winter again for my next marathon.  Trying not to cry.

3. First encounter with scary pit bull.  This dog doesn't jump over the fence, mainly because there are three strips of barbed wire across the top of it. It's the same dog that escaped one time and almost got me.

4. Encountered another dog, one that I call "carpet dog" because once, when I rode by on my bike, I thought someone had left a big pile of old white shag carpet out in the middle of their yard.  Until it moved and started barking.  Decided to turn around and head back early because I didn't want to find out if the walking carpet also had jaws of steel.

5. To make up some mileage, I headed down a side road that was surprisingly paved.  Nature called along this road, and I answered that call behind a bush with no leaves.  At the exact moment I hung up on the call, a car drove by and spotted me.  Damn-my first sighting.

6. Second encounter with scary pit bull.  This time, as I rounded the corner, he shoved his head and one shoulder through the chicken wire-esque fence as I scampered southward.  SCARY.

7. After doing some math, realized I was going to come up short in my mileage if I didn't do something.  Decided to suck it up and run westward into the wind one last time for the sake of making up a mile.

8. Realized my mental math capabilities totally and completely suck, because after some quick recalculations I now figured I would have about an extra quarter of a mile to run after I hit my target 12 mile mark.  Decided to take a sort of shortcut so I wouldn't have to run past my house and then come back (which is sheer agony, I tell you, to do at the end of a long run).

Even though it was cold, the sun was out, and it was a very nice fall morning.  I better enjoy them while they last-before the face-freezing sideways-snowing running days are upon me.