the hillbilly shuffle

the route for last weekend's 10 mile run intimidated me before i'd even clicked "save route" on MapMyRun. i made the mistake of checking the "show elevation" feature, and i think my heart palpitations matched the spikes in the resulting graph. we managed to slog through most of the run, but it was far from uneventful. the route itself involved several turns and streets that change names across intersections. i missed one of the name changes, thus taking a right to follow the current road name instead of heading straight onto a "new" street. i didn't realize my mistake until we came face to face with a golf course. my misdirected diligence cost us 2 miles and several long climbs on top of an already hill ridden course. 2 hours and 2 Gu packets later, we were shuffling through the last mile when i hit an uneven spot in the sidewalk and fell so dramatically that a passerby stopped his car to make sure i was okay. i dusted off the scrapes, which would have been worse had i opted for shorts instead of spandex, and we resumed our snail pace. somehow the semi-bouncing shuffle felt more admirable than just walking. we finally gave up after hitting what was theoretically the 10 mile time mark. given our earlier detour we still had a good 2 mile walk home so we did what any self respecting half-marathoner would do. we sat down on the side of the path, called a friend and got a ride home.

i'd like to report that yesterday's 11 mile run was an improvement (how could it not be?). sadly, it was actually worse, albeit less time consuming. about 3.5 miles into the much flatter run, my IT band revolted, and i had to stop. this left coffeeshopgirl in a bit of a lurch because there were 8 more miles to run and only a post-it note with my scribbled directions to guide the way. in light of sore hips and the possibility of getting lost in downtown atlanta, she decided to walk home with me. it was about 10 degrees colder than we expected, so after a mile of damp clothes and 15 mile an hour winds, we picked up the phone in search of another ride home (thanks to isabel for coming to the rescue both times).