9 Glorious Miles & Peeing in Public

Ah, Saturday morning. I used to look forward to sleeping in and then drinking endless cups of coffee while reading on the patio. Now, I'm up at 5:30 for a 9-mile run! What the heck happened to my life?

Here's what I will say: those were the greatest 9 miles of my life. I have been worried about this run all week. I got out of bed last night to map out routes on MapMyRun. I couldn't decide if I should do 8 miles or 9. I was a mess.

My original plan was to do the same 3-mile loop three times. Brian and I are so lucky to live right on the Los Gatos Creek Trail, which is about 11 miles of paved trail and generally a really great place to run. I wanted to start at Campbell Park (where there is a bathroom and water fountains) and run 1.5 miles south to Los Gatos Creek County Park (where there are more bathrooms and water fountains, see what I did there?) and then run back to Campbell park, three times total. Well, after the first loop, I thought, This is going to get boring, so from Campbell park I ran 1.5 miles north on the trail into San Jose and then turned around at 4.5 miles and ran back to Campbell park. Here's a little map:

Click to enlarge

Well, at that point (6 miles), my right knee was feeling a little "twinge-y" and I had to make the decision to finish the run on the trail, or run back to my gym and finish on the treadmill to avoid hurting my knee. I decided to hit the gym and ran from mile 6.5 to mile 9 on the treadmill set at a slight incline, watching the Open Championships, totally bored.

At mile 8, I got super hungry and considered chewing my arm off. Then I started thinking,

I could stop now. 8 miles is fine! Then the other half of my brain got super pissed and thought, Are you kidding? You've been running for over an hour! I think you can handle 9 more minutes!

So I did! I even sprinted the last 1/2mile.

• Total Mileage: 9.03mi
• Total Time: 1:21:58
• Average Pace: 9:05min/mi

When I hit "end workout" on my iPod, I heard the following, "Hi, this is Lance Armstrong. Congratulations on finishing your longest workout!" Pretty cool.

You know what else is cool? Peeing in public. OK, maybe not so much. Here's the story:

Around mile 1, I realized I had to pee. No biggie! I thought. There's a bathroom at the county park! So I trucked it to the park, bladder bouncing, only to find the freaking bathrooms locked! I took stock of my situation. There was no way I was going to make it back to the Campbell Park bathroom to pee, and even if I did, what if that bathroom was locked too?! I had to think fast.

So I glanced around, took (minimal) cover, popped a squat, and peed in the bushes. Just as I was finishing, a county worker rolled up in his pickup to unlock the bathrooms. He may or may not have seen my butt. I'm just saying. You gotta do what you gotta do.

When I got home, I did some Yoga for Runners, and had a post-run shower and snack.

Oh, Larabar, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Yes, I need a manicure

1. Dates
2. Peanuts
3. Salt

How incredible is that? My Green Monster had more ingredients! (spinach, banana, apple, honeydew melon, OJ, chia seeds)

Brian just asked if I want to go hiking today. I told him to go for a run and then we'll talk. HA!

Have you ever had to "use the facilities" when there are no facilities available?
This was actually one of the first times I've had to do this (the exception being when B and I hiked down into the Haleakela crater on our honeymoon last summer and I drank about a gallon of water and, guess what, there are no bushes to hide behind inside a volcano!), but my mom has a bladder the size of a walnut. I think she has peed behind almost every single tree in her neighborhood! I make fun of her relentlessly, but I think I might have to give it a rest now!