Six Mile Run, Not!

Today, for our last Saturday training run before the marathon, we were scheduled to run six miles.  Figuring that running six miles was not a big deal, expecting a lot of rain during our run, and certain that the run would be over quickly, I came prepared for a quick, easy six-mile run wearing my old, beat-up shoes, the ones that died during the twenty-mile run two weeks ago (Note to self: when a pair of running shoes dies, don’t ever wear them to run again).

Hello! Coach announced the route to us. “What? That’s over eight miles,” I exclaimed.

“Oh, it’s not over eight, you can do it,” replied our coach with a smirk.

But I had my Garmin GPS watch, and I remembered running that route on a day when we were supposed to run eight miles, and I remembered that the route was actually longer than that.

Not only was the route longer than six miles, it was longer than eight miles—by one and a half miles (thank you very much).  And if that wasn’t enough, we had to run a loop with super, steep hills, and there was no water or Gatorade at the water stop, and we didn’t come prepared for a long run, and none of us brought our gel packs for the run. (Yes, I can hear the world's smallest violin playing the world's saddest song.)

When we got back, I considered dumping Gatorade on our wickedly insane coach for psyching us out like that, but I didn’t.  He’s lucky that I’m so nice.

By the way, the run was actually 9.45 miles. Does that sound like six miles to you?