37.01 miles in 6:38:12, 10:46/mi, HR 141. Today's run got away from me a bit. Was thinking this run would be in the 25-30 mile range. I decided to run a loop to hit some sections of trail I hadn't before. The plan was to start with the Anvil connector to Memorial East, Upper Elkspur, Buck's Crossing, Lower Elkspur, Upper Elkspur, Memorial East, Anvil connector and back home. Everything went according to plan for the first few hours. The last section of Upper Elkspur before Buck's Crossing was pretty overgrown, but the section wasn't more than 1.5 miles so not too bad. The trail crew had been out weed-eating Buck's Crossing recently, so it was nice and wide, although that trail is actually a fairly narrow gully so footing can be tricky. Passed a couple of horsewomen, exchanged some trail condition info, and jumped onto the Lower Elkspur, headed onto a section I hadn't run before. Conditions were pretty rough....muddy, some sections overgrown, and not the best trail. The farther I went, the more conditions deteriorated overall. Some sections weren't bad, others I couldn't see the trail, and still others took me through 6' seedlings that completely obscured the trail. Then there was the fun stinging nettles and pricker weeds, so my legs felt like they were getting pretty torn up. I passed the Diamond Trail intersection, which I had run most of a few weeks back, and was truly in uncharted territory. The map I had wasn't to scale and I spent the next few hours running on trails that were barely marked and completely overgrown. I wound up getting lost on a few occasions, came upon unmarked trail intersections, and eventually got to the western trailhead and couldn't find the link between the two Elkspur trails. It was late and I knew I was going to be back after I'd told my wife, so I jumped onto what I guessed was the 5 road and headed back up the hill. Something didn't seem right, so I turned around, re-ran some trail only to have it disappear, encountered some closed gates with fresh warnings about spraying some chemical, and had all kinds of other fun before finally committing to the road. Fortunately, it was the 5 road. Unfortunately, I was out of water and out of legs, so the remaining 13 miles or so was a real slog. I eventually found another stream, jumped onto the 6 road, found the Memorial East trail, which was also now terribly overgrown, fought my way back to the Anvil connector, and headed down the hill for home. Instead of a 5-6pm arrival I got back at 8pm. My wife was not pleased. I seriously didn't intend to run this many miles today, so this is definitely the last long run before White River, but the ups and downs of this run was good training for the 100 miler. I still can't quite figure out how I'm going to survive that since these measley 37 miles kicked my tail. At least my water purifier seemed to function properly. | 