That's a snake! And that's not the visitors center!

RUN 5 hours and 21.1 miles in Greensfelder

TV and I set out with a 20-miler goal in Greensfelder. What a gorgeous day, sunny, light winds, hot but not too hot. Perfect :)

We started out from the stables and followed the new-to-me trail connection that we normally missed, something I figured out in one of my Kettle-prep solo long runs. From there, TV wanted to do Mustang for the hills. Mustang was a bit rough, passed thru some thorny patches and bloodied my knee on a fallen tree.

Then I suggested the Wall, how could you not run the wall, and then we headed off to Overlook. More hills! But on the way to Overlook, we saw a Timer Rattlesnake!! My first!! I saw it, he heard it, and I think we were lucky in that the snake was sunbathing on open flat trail, not in the rough and partially covered trail we were usually running it.

We watched it slither off to the side, and I ate my first root beer gu gel. Eh, it was Ok.

Up Overlook, down Beluah (or however you spell it), then back to the VC as he was out and I was low on water. I snacked a steamed potato, here I was almost 11 miles in and 2.5 hours, with only a potato and gel. I'm setting up the story for later...

I suggested the last 10 miles as the Terrain run I did in April backwards -- Dogwood to Declue. We set out, and pretty immediately my mood tanked and I started stumbling over every stupid rock. Took half a gel (40mg caff, so I just did half), felt better, but still low on the energy meter. But I was doing good, this was my longest run since Kettle, and it was on Greensfelder trails so that adds a level of difficulty.

Passed along SF (hate the noise from the rides, but love the trail, trail wins), and hit a branch that I thought would take us back to the VC. TV insisted the right branch, I thought it was left branch. He said they all meet up and go back to the VC, so I followed along. I was getting low on water, not out but not far from it. We were at 19 miles with my mood really falling off.

When we hit the road and not the VC, I was somewhat disappointed. I wanted to keep running but I was mentally done. I needed fuel! I had a Powerbar, but I was more set on testing the 2 gels and potato (last time I did a long run on those fuels the next day I had a very unhappy tummy, so I needed to test) than I was on being in a good mood. Besides, TV insisted we were only "only a mile away" and "almost there". I trusted him, followed along, but warned him that my sense of humor was falling. We kept going, and I thought were had passed the VC and were on the way to the truck. But to my surprise, we ended up at the VC! What?!

When I saw the VC, I was done. Didn't run another step. Walked to the truck, made a nice cool-down I guess.

So my nutrition needs some tweaking, and that will be easier to do once I get some things tested. See how tomorrow goes!

NUMERICS
RUN 52 miles
BIKE COMMUTE about 40 miles