Today we ran in a pack.  A pack of 4 strong-willed women determined to achieve our goal for the day.  It was a simple and pretty straightforward goal:  to run the furthest distance any of us has ever run… ever (a mere 14 miles).  Somehow that goal managed to be more complicated to achieve than we expected.  Well, it started out as our Saturday morning runs usually do:  the zombies arrive and grunt a greeting to each other as their eyes glaze over when they attempt to read the course map.  Often it is a series of loops here and loops there or turn right then turn left then turn right again… ultimately someone always manages to get off track and either do more miles than intended or fewer miles than required.  For training purposes, it is best to aim for more miles than intended (even though it really sucks, but you usually don’t realize you have gone over until you have finished).

Well, our pack quickly glanced at the map and determined that it was actually a pretty simple route.  We got this!  No problem!  Everyone knew where to go (well, our mellow friend doesn’t really worry about that because she just follows our lead… she has trusted my navigation skills many times… and I have always been an excellent navigator… way better than my husband… okay, I am starting to babble).  Heck, it almost doesn’t matter if we don’t follow the course exactly because everyone has some type of technological gizmo at their disposal.  In our pack today, we had two Garmins and my fabulous Droid phone with the free running application.  Well, it is only fabulous when you remember to turn it on and it took me about .25 miles before I realized I had forgotten to turn it on.  Same issue with the Garmin during a pit stop… So, we really didn’t have the most accurate data, but we managed.

Well, the route consisted of following a road to a turnaround point, coming back to where we started and then doing another loop in the opposite direction and coming back to where we started so we could go home.  As we run I don’t really pay attention to how far we have gone because I try not to focus on that, but I do pay attention to the landmarks.  So, of course I was getting antsy when we started heading back to the parking lot after our second loop, but guess what folks?  Yep, they didn’t map out the course for a 14-mile run.  So, we passed the parking lot (where are cars sat eagerly waiting for our return) for the 3rd time and continued running back towards where we had been on the first loop.  Then, we thought we were at a good turnaround point, but when we got to the parking lot we still needed another 0.5 miles!  Dang it!  We ran past the parking lot for the 4th time!  I nearly cried with agony.  Is this run over yet!?  0.5 miles later (a trip around the block) and we had our VICTORY!  Please don’t do that to us again…