When I woke up at my parent's house this morning I knew I needed to get my 7 miles in before the rest of the family showed up at 2pm. The night before I told myself if I left between 9-10am, I could be done in 2 or so hours. After all, last weekend it took 1hr 45min to do a 10K (6.28) miles, so adding an additional 0.8 should take me much more time. Two hours should be plenty.
So I rested and got suited up about 10am and left with my cell phone in one pocket, and a pear & chicken jerky in the other. Both pockets pinned up so things didn't fall out. I grabbed my sunglasses, a bottle of water, attached my iPod to my armband and I was off.
I started on the bike trail (Contra Costa Canal Trail) behind my mom's house- between Citrus and Oak Grove (closer to Oak Grove) and started walking toward Citrus. I used to bike these trails when I was a kid and knew where they went pretty well- though the farthest I used to go before was Cowel Rd. I was curious to see with my Nike+/iPod sensor, how far I used to bike! :)
I knew that my Nike+ sensor was being weird right away. It wasn't keeping a steady pace and was bouncing me back and forth between 17 mile/ min, 22mile/ min, 9mile/ min, 15 mile/ min, etc. I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew something was off. I thought maybe it had to do with the fact that I set the workout for a specific distance (7.00 miles) instead of just doing the "basic" workout I normally select. So when I got to the intersection with Treat Rd. I decided to end the workout. It said for the 22 mins I had walked that I had only gone 0.97 miles. WHAT? I knew I was walking at a 17 min/ mile pace- at least! I had even jogged some of that! So I decided to start a new workout and do it as a "basic" one, to see if it would star working correctly.
I continued walking and went past several check points, ate my pear and started sipping my water. I felt with the pear out of my pocket I could jog a little more, so I did. I kept setting goals for myself, like- just run to the next Stop sign. but was still disappointed when I looked down and saw the pace jumping- often at 0.00 miles/ min- and it was 24 mins and I had barely passed a mile!! This can't be right. I have gone almost a whole hour and have only done 2 miles!! This time I thought the problem might not be the setting (since i was on a "basic" workout) but maybe that the iPod is used and has been freezing up on me. I thought I might need to reboot it and try again, so I did.
At this point, I was already at the intersection with Cowel Rd (where I used to bike) and thought to myself- wow, its only 2 miles from home? That's all I used to bike as a kid? I guess I never went far before! I reset the iPod to a basic workout and started again. Now- the challenge with all these restarted workouts, is I am not sure if the Nike+ site will reflect them as three different workouts and add up the mileage, or if I need to just scrap those first two and do a full 7 miles on this workout for it to even count?
Regardless, after this third retry, I am still seeing the same stupid mixed up pace. I guess i started to believe that it was correct and I just wasn't working hard enough. So I kept walking (running a lot less) and made it past Clayton Blvd, past Concord Blvd and to Willow Pass Rd. I was actually really close to my brother's house and I had a fleeting thought- 'if I collapse right now, I could call him and he could find me on the side of the road'. Willow Pass Rd is where the Canal trail ended and it still said I had not done more than 1 mile since Cowel, so I went up the street to Olivera and headed down that road toward Pixie Playland (www.Pixieland.com).
I passed by all the baseball diamonds I used to play at when I was in Little League and even a bit into High School. The All Star diamond and look- they added a new batting cage! I passed by the Tennis courts and the Concord Community center, where I spent a summer between 1-2nd grade for day camp. It was the place I got cast in my first musical, when I played Annie, wearing one of my mom's wavy red wigs not exactly a tight perm. I also remember that summer for the cooking class and making my first Manwhich.
I decided to stop there to quickly use the public restrooms since i had needed to go for a while, but assumed I would be done in two hours and not worry about this. I was already close to 45 mins on the last workout (so about 1hr and 35 mins in the trip). Feeling a little refreshed, I continued on.
When I got to Pixie Playland, it was a lot smaller than I remembered, but the train was just leaving. I forgot it went out of the park and around the little lake behind it. I saw that I didn't have to pay to get in, just pay if I wanted to get tickets for the rides, so I power walked in and walked around the rides, seeing what I could remember. I mostly just remember feeling it was WAY bigger as a child. Then I walked out of Pixie Playland and followed the train path around the lake. The were ducks, geese and a lot of seagulls. I forgot about the seagulls. We used to have them all over my High School quad, too. i never see Seagulls in LA, unless i am actually near the beach.
I passed the little lake and walked to the end of the baseball diamonds (www.Callbaseball.com) where a family named Call has bought the remaining two diamonds and they were doing a clean up day there. I looked at the iPod and even thought it only said 1.25miles (which I was planing to add to the other two- 1 mile workouts) I thought I should return. I was getting tired and didn't know why it was taking me this long to do such a small amount of mileage.
As I walked back and got back onto the trail at Willow Pass another thought dawned on me. Yesterday, when I was showing off my new gear to my folks, I pulled out the Nike+ sensor that goes on my shoe. I didn't think about how I had put it back in. Maybe I had slid it in wrong? I stopped and put my foot up on a post and turned over my Bean Pod to slide out the Nike+. It did seem to be upside down from how I normally have it, so I flipped it- so the logo was pointed up (the way it would sit if it were in the shoe itself) and straightened the bean pod back out across my laces. IT IMMEDIATELY STARTED WORKING RIGHT!!
What a long lesson to learn! This time, it went from the 1.50 miles it was at when I made the change, to 2, then 3, then 4, then 5 and by the time i got home, it said 6.01 miles. I was already sore when I got home, I could feel it. I was also a little exhausted and felt like I had lost a lot of nourishment, so I hopped in the shower (right as my brother and his family arrived) and when I hobbled down stairs, I started eating.
I got curious later in the evening about how far I actually went, so I looked it up on Google Maps. It left me plug in the address to and from and select "walking route." I was able to zero in on the bike trail and then calculate the distance for what i actually did (see map picture above). Guess what- I went 5 miles- ONE DIRECTION!
Three hours and 10 mins, later, I got back at my parent's house. My left ankle is hurting a bit and my right heel, too. My knees feel about the way they normally do and my calves are pretty tight. I did stretch in the shower and on the floor, but I am feeling tight still.
So, in my attempt to be good and hang on till I reached 3.5 miles on a sensor that wasn't working right, I ended up going 5 miles before I even turned around. I didn't have to do 10 miles for another 2 weeks of training! Am I nuts? I am just glad I figured out the problem with the sensor, so it doesn't happen again. And hey! I did TEN MILES TODAY! Whoo hooo- I mean, OUCH!
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