My run at Deam today had a little of everything. It had zen moments of clarity, internal dialogue, external confusion, a little reality tilting, a couple of anxious horses to deal with and some heartstopping moments of spiderweb ninja moves.
I started out getting up at 4:45am so I could get on the road by 5:30am so I could get to Deam by 6'ish to start running. I had it all planned out. Park at the Horseman's Camp, hit Grubb Ridge (11miles) return to Horseman's Camp to the car, eat some PB-J sandwiches, get more water, freshen a bit and then head out and run Cope Hollow trail (10 miles) thereby getting in my scheduled 22 mile run for the weekend.
First: I got lost getting out to Deam. It was early, dark and I missed the sign on the way out. Finally wized up when I read "Lawrence county line" OH OH! I turned around and almost missed it again! Just barely saw the sign. So I breathed a sigh of relief, turned in and headed to the camp. I parked, got all my gear together and then...couldn't find the trail head.....doh! I had only been to Deam once that I could remember with Christy and Erin LAST YEAR. So...okay...I walked around the camp a bit, ran down the gravel road, looked at the map, went back to the camp, looked at the map again and finally found the trailhead. By now it was after 7am and I had 22 miles to do before I had to return the car around 1pm. I was cutting it close running a new set of trails with a lunch stop. So I headed off a bit anxious.
Immediately my anxiety started to dissipate as I took in the quiet, green woods. It was so quiet, so still and so majestic seeming around me. I started to practice my Chi Running which I have been studying a bit. I used a mindfulness skill I once learned where when I quieted my mind down and envisioned a conveyer belt which had bins at the end labeled "music", "sad thoughts", "worries", "funny thoughts", etc...Then whenever my inner attention was distracted from the quiet beauty around me I would put the thought on the conveyer belt and have it taken away and deposited into one of the bins to be thought about later. You can also use moving clouds or any number of things to do this. I am a very visual learner and this kind of thing always helps me more than a mantra or repeating things to myself like "return to breath" so I did that and just enjoyed it.
I felt like I was following the signs well. I was checking my map frequently at the intersections. The signs I saw were very vague however. Most of them just said "trail" with no designation. I found one that said "545 Trail" and then "Grubb Ridge" pointing either left or right. I chose right and up I ran up a big technical hill. I felt like I was making progress although the vaguery of the signs was getting to me. "TRAIL"??? what trail? where? huh??? Then I found myself after an hour staring back at the "545 Trail" and "Grubb Ridge Trail" sign. I had gone in a big loop!! AUUGH! Here my zen started to break down into frustration. I felt I had wasted an hour of my precious trail time going around in some circle and now had no idea what to do. Oh well. I started out again now changing my tactics to the other way.
Then as I was running more I started to see familiar landmarks only the other direction. So I had come around but knew by how much time had passed there was no way I had gone the complete 11 mile trail. I was not putting THAT much pedal to the metal although I was making some very good time on some of the run-able spots. I was feeling good physically so that was terrific. And the trails were all so pretty. I found the horseman's camp again and decided to take my lunch stop and then try to make it up by hitting the Cope Hollow trail. I was wishing so hard I had GPS so I could know how many miles I went but my watch only did Heart Rate and Time so I had to go by the time: 2:12. I had been running in circles for two hours! ACK! Okay so I would do what I had heard on a Trail Runner Nation podcast about the long run and do it by Time on The Trail. I had put in two good hours of steady, nicely paced running. So..okay. I changed my attitude, checked my perfectionism and ate my sandwich, had a bathroom break and started out again.
Now here it gets really sketchy: I found some little trail off to the side of the Grubb Ridge Trail. It was this little windy thing...really technical but I thought according to my map it COULD Be Cope Hollow trail by the direction. Maybe it just started out little and got better a little later. So down I went this little trail full of rocks and these windy dry creekbeds and WAY too many spiderwebs I kept running into which led to a fresh bit of Ninja behavior trying to desperately rid myself of any spider hitchhikers. I found none so YAY! That would have been a royal bummer!
So I follow this trail and little by little realize this is a LITTLE trail. Even horses weren't allowed on it because of that. It wound down and down and disappeared after another creek crossing. Couldn't find it anymore. So now I had to walk back UP the tech trail. It was pretty steep elevation. Like the walking-with-hands-on-thighs kind of steep. So Up I go again and now have wasted another half hour. I find Grubb Ridge and go again. By now I am just going to do an out and back as I was worried about getting my friend's car back in time for her. Then I found out I didn't have my phone. Oh JEEZ! So I decided to just go back to get my phone and that is when I ran into the horses. A man and woman on horseback. I had scared the horses appearing suddenly from behind running. The people said wait and let them turn around and see you! So the horses turned around and I have this kind of awkward wave at them like Hey horses...just a little old trail runner. No worries! They got the horses positioned kind of awkwardly and I scurried past the back ends of horses. Don't like going behind anxious horses! So after that I finally chucked the rest of the run, headed back to camp and decided to call it a day. My watch said I had been running for 3:58:11 so I rounded it up to 4 hours of consistent running as I had paused the watch while I ate lunch and bathroomed.
So I had a nice run in the pretty woods, thought some thoughts, had some adventures, got a nice picture or two and OH ran around with some cool rocks stuffed into my hydration pack. 4 hours, possibly 12 to 13 min. pace? So...doing the maths...maybe 16 miles? Not the full amount but a pretty good run after all.
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