I started out my weekend by sleeping for 10 hours last night. After a week of not sleeping well in the hotel and a long drive yesterday I was a little tired. I took it easy in the morning…. drank some coffee, ate breakfast, and caught up on blogs. Finally a little after noon I decided to head out for my long run. I got changed, but when I grabbed my Garmin off the charger and woke it up, it immediately said “low battery”. Apparently I did not get it on the charger properly last night.

I put my Garmin back on the charger so that it could charge, and grabbed my Timex stopwatch.

But then I realized that the loop I was planning to run was not one I had done before. I have done one similar, with an extra out and back, but not just this loop. I wanted to know how long this loop was, so I decided to chill on the couch with Scout, watch Dance Moms from this week, and let my Garmin charge up some.

She was happy to have someone to cuddle with.

After Dance Moms, I went back and checked my Garmin…. 56% charged! That will work! So I put on my shoes and headed out the door.

I was a little worried about my run today. First of all, it was day 5 in a row for running, which is pretty much unprecedented for me. Also, the past 4 days of running had elevation profiles like this:

Elevation from Wednesday’s run

Flat and at sea level. I wasn’t sure how my legs would handle the hills, but they ended up doing surprisingly well. Here is how the elevation for today’s long run panned out:

Definitely a lot different from the beach. I started out from our house and felt pretty good. It was kind of nice to be back running at home. I thought to myself “home sweet home” as I ran. The ocean is relaxing, but I enjoy the mountain view more I think.

I tried to just run at a comfortable pace and take the hills as they came. This worked out pretty well for most of the run.

A little before mile 3, I ran past this farm that serves as a bull test station. Basically it’s a place where they keep a lot of bulls and test their count to see how well they’ll do for breeding. This whole field is full of bulls…. not a field I’d want to go in.

When I hit mile 4 my legs started to get pretty tired, but I knew it was only a little over a mile back to the house. I snapped this picture after I made it up the long climb from mile 3 to 4. Then I hung a right turn and continued to climb some more.

In the last mile of my run, I passed this one farm that always makes me laugh. In this one field they keep 3 horses, a bull, and a goat.

Sometimes when I drive by all 5 animals will be eating hay at the feeder at the same time. The bull and 3 horses stand around the feeder to eat and the goat will actually stand on top of the hay so that he can get some, too. It cracks me up every time I see them like this, but of course they’re always just spread out in the field when I’m running by.

I finished up my run with just a little over 5 miles for the day at 9:56 pace. Not too bad in my book, considering it was day 5 in a row for running and it was a lot hillier than all of my other runs this week. I think it’s kind of funny how I think of today’s run as a “long run” even though I ran further on Thursday this week. I guess since it’s a run that took place on the weekend, but wasn’t actually a race, it’s automatically a long run.

Garmin users: What do you do when you’re ready to head out for a run but your Garmin flashes the dreaded “low battery” on the screen?

Do you consider weekend runs “long runs”, even when they’re not all that long?

Anyone else watch Dance Moms??