Day 6

I've been corrected: the detox diet is 12 days, not 14. So I guess we're halfway done! We've already discussed maintaining some parts of it, especially some of the recipes I've tried. My own goal is to control the amount of candy and simple sugar I eat. Both of us will be resuming cheese consumption asap, though!

Anyway, my husband had to go on post this morning so the dog and I tagged along to start our run there and skip the short uphill to post. I'd decided to run to and along one road that curves about in the back forest and then back through the main area of post and then home. I actually found a map that had most of my route on it, albeit not much of the road I was most interested in, but I could check where it started and ended. I figured this would be a ten-ish mile run and I'd make it home in two hours at the most.

We ran to where the road started (temporarily delayed due to a street name I'd written in which was evidently from an outdated map) and it was closed for construction. It actually looked great to run on, just dirt, but I didn't want to push my luck. Generally, on an army post, closed means "closed" and not "you can sneak through but you can't sue us".

Reroute! We ran through, and probably woke up, a neighbourhood--there were two dogs that kept barking long after we were gone. I felt bad about that; it wasn't my intent to run through any of the housing areas, but it's also against my nature to retrace my steps on exploratory runs unless I absolutely have to. A blocked path is an invitation to look at something else.

We ran a loop and ended up where we had been before, but we continued straight this time. Shortly after this, I was halted by more confusion. There was a street that was unnamed on my map, and there was another misnamed street, but this time the faulty name was printed on the map and not by me.

The original: Oregon Ave
Now: Organ Ave.

Is this how you're really supposed to say "Oregon?" Or did someone mishear an order along the way? It's amusing, particularly since I didn't notice until this morning that it was "Oregon", and I remember being on "Organ" earlier this week and wondering why someone would choose such a name for a street.

Anyway, it was a small puzzle, we quickly found the correct street, and we ran past the post stables. They are marked on the map but I didn't notice that our detour would take us there until I smelled horse.

My dog hates horses. He's very specist; I've written about this before. In the case of large animals, he has no problem with cows; we've run among herds occasionally and he was cool with that. Horses, on the other hand, drive him nuts...or drove. Fortunately, we ran by the stables and umpteen pastured horses without incident. The horses stared at us, I stared back because there was something captivating about their gaze, more intelligence than one usually finds in a prey animal, perhaps, and the dog just kept trotting along quietly. I guess his issue is mainly with caleche horses, or maybe it's horses moving in general...I'm not really sure.

The road past the stables lead to the road I wanted. We hit the T and originally I thought about going left and checking out the closed section--there was another closed sign right at the intersection but this was pushed aside and the road was still paved. This was "closed but you can still get to work or wherever"--there was a parking lot and building beyond this. Maybe it was the archery range. We turned right and went up a rather large hill. There had been hills all along but this was a radio tower type of hill. And then we went down the wrong way at first because there was a missing street sign but at the bottom of this road we found port potties and a dog park. I used the former and thought about tossing my dog into the latter, but people drove up and tossed their dogs and kids in it so we went back up the hill. I walked a portion of it. It was steep and there was still more run to go and I had no idea if I was in for an hour of up and down worse than the usual up and down.

However, once we went up on the correct road, it levelled off and the views were amazing. The sun was shining, the dried grass was almost golden and not just dead; there was a bunch of smaller hills and farms and so forth. It was Barry Lyndon meets Eastern Kansas. We found a plaque that said there used to be a wooden French fort dating from the reign of Louis XV somewhere in the region, the ruins of which Lewis and Clark had seen in 1804 or so. I find it rather tantalizing that something is so old that people two hundred years ago saw its ruins. Unfortunately, there is a bit of fencing and hunting area in the way, but maybe, one day, we'll find a ....overgrown posthole?

The road at this point wasn't up and down but more of the gentle undulating type I'm used to. It felt great. We ran by a prisoners' graveyard, and I felt incongruously buoyant.

I felt so great that when we got close to the airfield, I decided to run around it to see if the path was still nasty new gravel. It wasn't as bad as before, but there were still a few sections where I had to walk. My shoes are pretty thin and no match for large loose gravel--this stuff is plum-sized, it's not the usual gravel. Maybe a few more months will break or push down the largest pieces.

After the airfield loop, I was beat. We ran up and down a hill to the old prison wall. There was a restricted area sign that I think was meant for a road turning off the one we were on, but I turned around anyway, back up the hill, and up a further hill to the vet's office.

It's neat putting the pieces together; I enjoy the feeling of a place clicking into recognition, especially if I'm approaching it from a different direction There is a moment of deja-vu, a moment of confusion, and then realization, and the place almost shrinks and becomes brighter in a way, all the looming uncertainty vanished. Eventually, sadly, it might become nondescript, but the first approach from each direction is so exciting!

We ran home, the "little" hills on the way were merciless. I walked the last few blocks home even though this part was downhill because I was tired and wanted to loosen up before going inside. 16.31 miles total. It was a bit longer than I'd expected and since I'm on this no-simple sugar or refined grains diet, I couldn't eat gels. I had some dried berries instead--they have sugar too but enough fibre or whatever to counteract the effect, apparently, and I felt the difference. Low muscle glycogen: heavy legs. But, hey, some runs are good, some are not so good, and there were so many cool and new things on this run that I consider it the former.

I still remember the first time I ran over 16 miles. This was pre-blog, sometime in the summer of 2006 when we were melting in Virginia and I'd run in a nearby forest that used to be a battlefield. It was a hot day (they were all hot days, we arrived in April and left in October and it felt like summer throughout) and some of the forest paths were loose sand. It was hilly there too, not like here, or Korea, but the heat and humidity amplified even the smallest incline. I mostly ran around a loop; I stashed my water and snacks at a point so that I wouldn't have to carry it and that helped me keep going, knowing that sustenance was ahead, but I went through my water a little more quickly than anticipated, plus it warmed up. The last loop is a blur of discomfort, and I went home thinking that if 16 miles was that brutal, a marathon just wasn't in the cards. Since then, I've had many pleasant 16 mile runs and above, and some unpleasant ones, but this run today felt kind of like my first one. It's as if I'm starting to run from scratch.

That makes it more interesting.