My first attempt at a Long run outside

This weekend I tried to mix it up, moving my long run from Sunday to Saturday (to avoid the inevitable "I'm too busy to run" that happens on Sunday.) And since it was (relatively) nice out, I decided to do the long run outside.

After discussing a few different options, it was worked out that the best idea for our schedule was for us to drive over to my parents, where I would proceed to run around the nice, clean and (relatively) car free streets in their neighborhood. And so that is what we did. Sort of.

Apparently about a mile into my run (a little over), I lost my damn mind. Bored to tears with trying to make loops around the neighborhood, I made a fateful decision, I turned right. Instead of turning back towards my parents house along the main road near them, I thought, "You know what would be fun? I'll run towards the village! I'll just turn around at the corner and head back..."

And then I didn't. I kept running. I ran down through the village. I turned right on another major road, and kept running. And then I realized, the only way to get back to my parents was to either call for a ride, or run up a hill of doom. So I ran up the hill of doom....well most of it anyways.

Surprisingly, the run felt good. Except for a short period of time where my calf was acting up around the middle of the run, and the very last part of the hill'o'doom where I had to walk, I felt good. I had my hand held water bottle, and a Honey Stinger waffle in my pocket. Starting about 2 miles into my run I would break off little pieces of the waffle to munch on, and wash it down with water. It worked really well.

The run went so well in fact, that at the end of the run, I was considering adding more distance by doing a few more laps around the streets near my parents house, but it was getting really dark and I was not all that confident in how visible I was. So I called it and walked a bit before heading into my parents.

And then I looked at my GPS, and saw that I was just short of six miles. I honestly thought about going back out and just running around the block to hit that six, but I was tired, and everyone was waiting for me to eat.

So just short of six with some killer hills is how my first outdoor "long" run will stand. Next week, I aim for eight!