Sixteen educational miles

Last night I had to negotiate running time with Scott. It's a wonderful frustration that I only get in the summer.... He is so insanely busy through out the rest of the year that the only time he really gets to run is during camp. So, we decided I would get up and out the door by 5AM so he could go at 7 and be back in time for an 8:00 staff meeting.

I did even better than I thought getting out the door: 4:50. I have been terrible about keeping track of exactly how far I'm meant to run these days. I just knew that last week I did a very tough (read: mountainous) 12 and this week I needed to do a few more miles than that, but hopefully on slightly flatter ground.

I took off from camp and noticed immediately that it really wasn't nearly as cool as I thought it would be. In short order my shirt and shorts were soaked through. The good news was the bugs weren't out at this early hour so I wasn't swatting at myself.

I had figured I would run down into Wolfeboro to the old train station which houses the town's only public rest rooms. That's a go-to spot for me on almost all my long runs since it means I can pee and fill up my water bottles. I was definitely going to need to do both.

By the time I got within about .5 miles of there I realized an hour had already gone past and I had run 7.5 miles. Uh-oh. Getting back up the huge hills to camp by 7:00 was going to be tough... maybe impossible. I briefly considered cutting the run down by a mile by turning around where I was but I really needed to get that water and go pee. So, onward I went.

The joke was on me. It was about 5:55 when I got to the rest room door and it was.... tightly locked. Frrrraaaaccck! The peeing I wasn't that worried about. I have made myself comfy in plenty of bushes. But where in the world was I going to get water? Oh boy.

I turned back up Main Street and tried to figure out the shortest route back to camp. There was really no way to know. I decided to take Waumbec Road which cuts across to Tuftonboro but has some very large hills. At this point I was searching for anyone with lawn sprinklers going because I was definitely going to use them to fill up the water bottles and maybe just soak myself cool.

It was getting very close to 7:00 when I saw Linda, the camp nurse, zooming past... back from her day off. If I had seen her coming I think I would have flagged her down and asked for water... or maybe a ride. I was feeling really guilty about leaving Scott in a lurch, especially since I want to support his efforts to get in shape. "You spend hours and hours each week running and you can't get back here in time for me to do four miles?" Ugh.

When I got to the bottom of the camp road (just under 2 miles from the finish) it was already a little after 7:00. I had a cell phone so I called camp to let them know I was on my way but I was going to be late....

Cramps caused by dehydration forced me to walk a great deal of those last 2, ridiculously hilly miles. I stumbled into camp at 7:20 and went down to the rooms that Scott uses during camp.

He was very nice about it. Instead of griping at me he said, "Hey, when you have to put in miles like that it's hard to know exactly how long it's going to take. I'll figure something out." Saint Scotty, ladies and gentlemen.

So, I learned some things.

1) It takes a lot longer to run from camp to Wolfeboro and back than I thought.
2) Don't count on water at the train station.
3) Cramps are not fun and will be hard to overcome if you have 0 ounces of water available.
4) My husband is nicer than me.

Well, #4 I already knew.