It was a little chilly outside, mid to upper 40's and a slight breeze. It was the first time we had run this route, so I thought it would be a great way to keep us entertained. Boy, was I right.
Around mile 2 we came upon our first item of interest, markings from some sort of bike race.
As we approached the rail road tracks, we saw this:
Followed by this:
and then this (the reason for the markings):
S. and I were cracking up at the bike race "heiroglyphics" - thats a race director with some humor. Thought its a valid thing to warn bike riders of. Those tracks were downright scary!
S. and I kept on trucking for the next few miles...We were already both feeling tired, though I think neither of us wanted to admit it. As we got closer to the turnaround, I snapped this pic. Powerlines amaze me for some reason, especially these super high voltage ones. You can hear them buzzing, which is pretty wild. They just seem to go on and on forever. Not long after this was our halfway point (finally!)S. and I were thrilled when we finally reached the turning point. We stopped, took our GU and a water break. I had the orange burst flavor.... which in my opinion, was disgusting! I absolutely prefer the vanilla, i think because its so plain and acutally palatable. I am never having the orange burst again!
Anyway, after that terrible experience, I figured the run would only get better from here... I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
We started back and were met head on with what felt to us like gale force winds. They really were only 10-20 mph, but thats a lot to run against. We made it another mile or so and finally were so out of breath that we stopped and decide to walk to the next turn and hope it would get better...
Well, guess what... It didnt. Wind still hitting us in the worst way possible....We decided to wave the white flag and walk the rest of the way back. For those of you who think I'm exaggerating... Here is a photo of S's ponytail blowing in the wind. She was standing still at this point so I could get a photo:
I won't lie... we briefly entertained the idea of having someone pick us up, but by the time anyone would have reached us, we would have made it almost back to the car. So, we walked... and walked.... and walked...
At one point we passed a barn that seemed like it was empty on our first pass, but then this beautiful horse came out to meet us. (I wanted to get a pic with the horse, but thought the people in the house across the street were watching me.)
And so we continued to walk and chat... I guess that was probably one of the good points of walking back. S. and I had great conversation all the way back to the car. (Downside: it got very cold!)
As we neared the "rough, ouch RR crossing" again, we noticed a train in the distance... we looked at each other and S said "do you think we can beat it?"
I thought to myself and wasn't sure if we could, but for some reason we both started running and after about 100 feet said "screw it" and walked again. We beat the train, by this much:
I waved at the train engineer and he honked, but I'm sure that was only because he was at a crossing.
Anyway, 2 hours and 29 minutes after we left the car for our 12 11mile run... We made it back.
We both jumped for joy, then jumped in the car and headed back home to the comforts of our couch!
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