11 miles - by accident?

I ran 11 miles by accident this past Sunday. I've been asked how you run 11 by accident, much less anything by accident. It's simple math, really:

Trying to determine route to run past former President Bush's new house + getting lost/turned around and not-wanting-to-seem-suspicious-so-take-another-route-back-home = 11 or so miles round trip.

Now, 11 miles may not seem silly for a long run on a Sunday morning. But, my longest run (since early December's Dallas White Rock half marathon) has been only approximately 7.8 miles . And that was a couple weeks ago. So I have greatly increased my mileage in a short amount of time. Especially considering not even two weeks ago two days' worth of running added to a total of a little more than 11 miles.

Oops.

Nevertheless, I felt pretty darn great! Minus the last 1.5 miles or so. Luckily, I was smart enough to carry along a gel pack (first one since the half marathon - hello gooey mess of goodness). However, I did it all with no water. Double oops on that. Make it a triple oops when you add in the fact I'm running in shoes I bought in probably July or August and have done much more than a handful of marathons total in miles. My knees were loving that.

After passing Bush's street - blocked off by a Dallas police Tahoe and a make-shift stop sign in the middle of the street - and realized I don't want to turn around (like I was doing an out-and-back) and cause suspicion, I realized going home was going to take a lot longer of a route than getting there. That's when I started getting a game plan in my head in case of emergency, as to where I could stop to borrow a phone in the case I needed to call Bryon to pick me up. I was imagining my body plastered to the street in the middle of a quiet neighborhood, where I wouldn't be discovered until a family came home from their post-church lunch. Luckily, I made it, but I was definitely having these thoughts up until I made it past our Y and I knew I was in the home stretch - the last 1.25 miles. Whew.

But, I am amazed at what my body handled and the pace - the pace! - was terrific. For not doing much long distance training in a really, really long time was awesome. Go figure. But the knees were another story.

Needless to say, I got a brand spanking new pair of my Brooks yesterday and they're just waiting to discover new ground this week. Yesssssss!