So, according to the little widget in the sidebar, I have 3 months and 19 days until the race. My long run of 10 miles yesterday puts me exactly where I want to be at this stage in my training. Throughout, the focus has been on not damaging myself, and aside from a nagging little pain in my right achilles, everything feels the way it ought. A large part of this has been fighting my urge to run as far as I can every long run. Instead, I’ve been focusing on running the plan, keeping mileage spikes to a controllable level. This is not always easy.

Take yesterday’s run, for example. While I should have been running 10 miles, because I took a week and a half off earlier, my revised schedule said 8. Yesterday was gorgeous, and I drove out to the Manassas battlefield for my 8 miles along the trails. Manassas has two distinct sets of trails, the first, aptly named First Manassas is about 5.3 and meanders through the major engagements of the first battle. It is well marked, and originating at the visitor’s center, is by far the more popular of the two trails. It features a nice combination of forest and field, single track and wide track.

Second Manassas is quite a different story. The trail alternates between well marked and disturbingly chaotic. Second Manassas is also complicated by a much larger set of subtrails, sightseeing diversions, and working farm roads. And, if by some quirk of fate, you manage to stay on the main trail, the circuit is about 7 and a little miles. That’s on a regular day. Yesterday was not.

First off, we’ve had ungodly amounts of rain over the last couple of weeks so things are wet. By wet, I mean quicksand-like mud that oozes over the tops of your shoes, and streams that have – on their own accord – found much more interesting ways to get where they are going than the boring old stream bed they’ve flowed through for the last 20 years. Secondly, about 3 miles in, a landscaping project designed to make the environs look much as they did at the time of the battle, but resembling at this point nothing less than a cyclone devastated couple of square miles, closed the trail. Past the closed sign were felled trees, washed out trails, unkempt supports, and the unrestrained and unchallenged supremacy of the local food chain. So I ran right in.

Here’s the thing with a landscape devoid of recognizable landmarks, natural tells, trail signage, and any-which-way stream flows: it is impossible to only run 8 miles. No, really. I mean, I guess I could’ve stopped when my watch said 1 hour 20 mins, but then I’d be standing in the midst of a pile of broken trees, looking forlorn, and wondering if any of those funny looking bugs were edible.

Instead, I ran down trails that weren’t trails, up trails that were trails but leading exactly in the wrong direction, and spent an ungodly amount of time turning around, fashioning sextants from poplar branches, scrounging for magnetic ore and a needle, and other where-in-the-hell-am-I activities. Finally, and purely by the power of elimination (thank you scientific method), I managed to land on a bit of trail I did recognize, and started motoring into the finish.

As mile number nine clicked over, and I could see my finishing point off in the distance, I realized that I was really happy. Not so much for knowing where I was, because face it: in this world of gps, google maps, and “find out anything in a second” digitalia, being lost is actually a wonderful thing. No, I was happy because I’d just spent the last hour and half doing nothing but moving through the forest and fields, listening to nothing but my own breath and the steady cadence of my footfalls, seeing nothing but the late spring colors of nature and the hawks on the wind.

What a way to spend a Saturday morning, and what a way to feel 3 months and 19 days out.

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