I am more tired today than last weekend when I did the marathon. I went out for a long run today. I wanted to do a three hour run. I started at 1:30 and was hoping to finish by 4-4:30. I was not doing by distance today. I think the total mileage maybe around 16? I didn’t track it.
It was a very looonngg run. I was at the Manassas Battlefield. It was not a place unfamiliar to me. I was there doing my spring training last fall, but it has been a while and my previous training was only in the first Manassas battlefield and I have not gone to the second Manassas battlefield. I had that crazy idea of combining the two.
The battlefield (I and II) is much bigger than I thought. It is actually divided into four parts, like a piece of paper folded in half and another half, so you have four quadrant. I normally spend most of the time in the first part, northeast part (stone bridge to the stone house). The first part usually take me about half hour to loop it.
So my time calculation was a bit off. I went from northeast quad to the northwest and it took over three pages of map. The area is large. I knew I was in trouble when it was already 3 pm when I arrived at the northwest. It was far! I was trying to make a loop there (to go to south west) and get to the south east and back to north east. Then I saw the sunset at 4:30 and I was still stuck at the other side (west). It was a nightmare. I ran and ran and couldn’t seem to get out of the park. Turning around wasn’t an alternative. Finally around 5, the sun has set and it was getting dark, I reached the part (Henry house/Henry Hill) where I was familiar with. There was still about couple more miles (3ish miles) to go to get back to my car.
I had one of the longest runs. I think though I was tired but it was worth it. The trail was muddy and I slipped all over the place. My shoes didn’t do so well. They got stuck in the mud. It was a good preparation for me for the race coming up. I have to choose better shoes for trail running especially if the trail is muddy.
I was also pretty bad with map reading. The actually real world seems to have more paths than the map is showing and where there is a path clearly shown on the map, all I found a big field with no path. I have the tendency of picking the wrong path to go.
I mentioned the park is divided into four quadrants but it is really six different parts. The west side has two extra areas that I failed to account for. There is where I underestimated the distance. Also the west side has less visitors so the trails there are poorly maintained (muddy/ no drainage, not gravel path). The park is huge! I did only one loop today (visited 5 of six parts).
(End day 31)
In awe 