Let me start by saying that I hate running. It’s boring. It hurts. It gets one nowhere fast.
I do it anyway – Not to marathon lengths. In fact, my marathoner friends will sneer with amusement at this story. A normal run for me is about 6 miles – my absolute maximum, physically about 7 – 7.5.
I thought.
So when I found myself 4.5 miles from the hotel, standing a mile out into the ocean on a pier, considering the run back, I realized this was going to be a new personal record.
The guy at the hotel told me it was “about 2 miles to the pier” and that the pier is “one mile long”.
Correcting for concierge inaccuracy, I figured it would be about 2.5 miles to the pier. With the run out & back, it would be a total of 7 miles.
Somewhere past the third or fourth handful of wild horses, I looked at my running watch and saw 2.75 miles.
(As an aside, on the way to the beach, the driver had told me most of the formerly-wild horses on this part of the island have owners, but those owners let those horses run wild in order to avoid feeding them. The owners then have a unique call, which brings the horse back when they need them. I verified this later with a few other people).
Doing the calculation in my head, I figured, no problem, another quarter mile and it will be 3 miles, then 2 miles round trip on the pier, for an 8 mile run.
At 3 miles, the pier was not in sight. I figured, I’ll run to the pier, but not do the run out to the end and back.
At 3.5, I found myself staring at a dirt road to the pier.
“All this way, and I’m not going to run the pier? That’s what I came for.”
So I turned and started the run across the water.
Turning around at 4.5 miles, on the end of the pier, looking back at land, I used the excuse of needing a picture as a chance to rest. It was going to be a long way back.
I took my picture, and started back, yesterday’s blister in the arch of my foot reminding me it was there. Back on the main road, 5.5 miles down, 3.5 to go. There’s only one way back, and other than a few cars on the pier, there had not been much activity outside of horses, birds and a dog or two.
Did I mention a reason for picking this route was that it is quiet and unpopulated?
Did I mention the marines & the navy used this island as a training ground because parts of it are similar to the jungles of Vietnam, complete with heat and humidity? (That fact I could not verify, but seemed believable. I know there’s still military infrastructure).
I counted steps. I played the “I’ll just run to the next hill then rest (but then keep running)” game. 7 miles.
Next was the pound-out-rhythms-to-songs with my feet game. It was good til about mile 8.
Then it was trying to identify landmarks from the run in. I saw a bird sitting on a horse’s back. That was funny.
Then the turn to the hotel.
9 miles. Not sure point of this story, but I guess 7.5 was only a mental maximum.
Please don’t let me start thinking I should do a marathon.