A new route, a milestone, and dog poop (again with the dogs)

I set out on a new running route today. I never do that. I run the same roads every single time I run. Most of the time I run alone, so running familiar routes is a comfort to me. I know the houses. I know the dogs. (There are two on the backside of my 8-mile loop who chase me every Sunday on my long run, but they are behind an electric fence.) And apparently some of the people know me--I once got passed by a woman out on a beach cruiser who struck up a conversation with me about how much I was running because she'd watched me lose 20 pounds over the course of several months passing by her house on my runs.

Today on my 14 miler, I ran out into the countryside onto the sixteen-mile loop that is part of my bike route. Hills. I haven't found out too much about the Flying Pig, but people tell me that I need to be running hills. Perhaps not the wisest choice today--I haven't run 14 miles in five years. I've been sick for the last week and a half. And I was tacking two miles onto my previous long run, so it promised to be a tough day out there anyway.

The thing about this route, though, is that I know where the dogs are because they've chased me on my bike a million times. I talked with my husband about it before I left the house, and he said that he hadn't seen any dogs in the house I was most worried about in quite some time. Comforting. Last time I'd been by there on a bike, no fewer than four dogs had chased me down. My husband said that he seldom gets chased on the run like he does on a bike. Hmmmm. Okay. I'd give it a whirl.

So this house is about five miles into the run. And you get to the top of a roller just before you get to the edge of the property. Then you're faced with about a third of a mile of barnyard and junkyard-like paraphernalia to deal with. If the dogs are there, they are usually pretty well-hidden, but they are never chained or collared. And by the time I got there today, I had repeated my husband's words about not having seen dogs there several times in my head like a mantra to calm me. Still, I was wound up.

I tried to run as stealthily as I could, and I was about halfway past the house when I started to think my husband might have been right. Maybe these folks had gotten rid of their dogs. Phew. What a relief. Shuffle, shuffle....shit. Yep. Right next to the mailbox. Two amazing piles of dog poop. I mean, these piles were so huge that I wasn't sure that Clifford himself hadn't been there. My heart rate skyrocketed, but I shuffled on. Evidence. No dogs today. But the signs are clearly there.

Miles four through eight were the hills. I was gassed when I was done with them, and I still had another six to go. I finished, though. I wrapped up the run at exactly fourteen miles, and I was exhilarated and discouraged. Exhilarated because I hit the 14 mile milestone again. I haven't been that distance since the marathon of Ironman Wisconsin in 2007. Discouraged because my mile pace was a full minute slower than the 12 miler I'd done a couple of weeks earlier. Also discouraged because I felt like crap when I finished. Seriously. I got in the shower and couldn't stand still because my hammies were screaming so loudly. I went through that mental space where the marathon seems ridiculous. If 14 feels this bad, then how the heck am I supposed to get back to 26.2? And I'm looking at a 5+ hour marathon time, and that's something I've got to get in the right head space about before I toe the line in May.

All part of the process. And there's no point to committing to a marathon if I'm not going to appreciate the process.