The Long Run along the Interstate #notbeach

Long runs can be epic things. I didn’t get my run on the beach because we are now at the resort. But I did know I needed a long run or Around the Bay will be a bigger death march than it already is shaping up to be.

So I went to the front desk and asked this morning: “What is 10 km away? I need to run 20 km today and my running watch is in my delayed baggage.”

They blinked at me.

One gentleman pointed out that I was on vacation.

And then they began searching, telling me it was the most interesting task they had had in a while. Soon they found a destination, but instead of running on a beach, I would be dashing along a highway. I was not fazed. The way this vacation has been, I have been expecting nothing other than the opposite of what I had been planning.

Soon I was off with my cell phone and music, running on exit lanes until I reached the highway. You know those runs where you just feel epic? Like you feel as if you are smack dab in the centre of Remember the Titans when you are running in the rain. Or your feel like Forest Gump when you run over huge bridges. Well, I felt pretty epic running on a Florida highway. Until I reached the rolling hills. I never mentioned I wanted nil elevation. Well, I shuffled through to my half point and turned around to be faced with wind blowing in my face.

Great.

I surged on, telling myself it would get better. It didn’t.

And then my IT band started acting up. And not in a small, I feel something a little off, but I can run through it but in a omygoshthereisatinymanstabbingmyknee kind of way. I stopped and called my dad. No answer. I had 5 miles to go.

I tried to tell myself it was good practice for the race and I did what you should never ever do on an injury: I kept running.

As I finally hobbled off the last exit, I was a salt crusted, limping silhouette, quieting seething at my father for not seeing the dire situation his daughter was in-ravenous, dehydrated and in pain- and dropping everything and coming for me. But I was still *running.

*(ish).

O. And I forgot about sun because I live in the Arctic and I was scorched to a lobster-like crisp.

I have never had a run go this wrong. But I finished it, stretched, hot tubbed and hugged my dad. Because as I was stumbling along a random Florida Interstate, he made a glorious steak dinner for me to return to.

I went to his powered off phone, quietly deleted the “Help, Emergency, pick me up right now!!” texts and went outside.

“How was the long run, honey?” he asks.

“Great dad, just great!”