Am I actually a runner now?

http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/?l=mapit,10325393

The above link is a map of the route that Dana, Devry and myself undertook this past wintry and very snowy Saturday. Little did we know that the path we chose could also have been a nice training ground for Ninja Warrior.

As you can see from the above picture we started out fresh as a daisy and rarin' to go. However we encountered a few obstacles on our run. Mostly that it was blocked off by fences as apparently it is the property of the US Government and they would prefer not to have trespassers. But we pressed on.
After crawling through the fence we continued our run through the mud. You can catch a glimpse through the fence of how muddy it in fact was. As further proof I offer you a view of Devry's pant legs when we finished the run.


We ran unimpeded for about another mile. Well I should say that only Dana actually ran the full length of the course. Devry and I don't feel too bad about this fact as our course was almost 3.5 miles instead of the 3 we were supposed to run. Also the fact that Dana has been running for about a year longer than either Devry or I. Yet Dana must be praised because the conditions were treacherous and I almost slipped and fell in the mud on several occasions.

We came to our final obstacle just as we were about to flip around and run back. The problem was we didn't know it was our turning point. When we came to another fence we didn't want to have to climb it so, as there was an opening on the right side of the ravine we just crossed over.
Once we had ascertained that this was in fact our turning around point we were not looking forward to recrossing that ravine as it was a bit scary. Fortunately we discovered that we would not need to.


As the above picture illustrates, if only we would have looked left. Where I am standing on the left is an opening in the fence. Yes, that's right as silly as we are we crossed the ravine for no good reason as we could have just walked right on through. Let's just say we won't be making that mistake again.

After running back from this point we finally finished our route. What a sense of accomplishment. I figure if we can run in conditions such as these we might in fact turn out to be runners after all.

Here we are just happy to be done!
Good run ladies! Can't wait until our 4 mile next Saturday.