20.8 miles!

The plan was to meet at Umstead State Forest, at the Graylyn entrance at 5:30 AM, since if we were going to run more than 4 hours, it would be late by the time we were done. So I tried to get to bed early, but still started sleeping around 11 PM. Up at 4:45 AM, and driving to Umstead a little after 5 AM. Someone forgot to tell us that 5:30 AM in late September was already dark. On the drive, I even saw some deer, including one fawn on the side of the road who gave me the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights look.

So I got there, it was dark, the only light was from the half-full moon. I was the only one there. No other cars. So I parked all the way nearest to the gate. I knew I had become a little diehard athlete. I was the first one at the gate! Called up Jeff, who actually was there earlier, then figured out he was alone, so he went to a gas station to get some gas. It was dark, so I just sat there in the van for a few minutes. I thought I'd nap. Then I figured, what if someone comes and gets me while I'm in the van- I was alone and it was dark! I was sitting alone in the middle of a dark forest, so forgive these crazy thoughts :-). But i did stay inside the van and locked the doors. Of course, I didn't nap :)

In about 5 minutes, Jeff arrived. We were still the only ones there. It was cold- maybe in the 50's, and I was wearing my running shirt. I had to put on one, then two cotton T-shirts I brought. Jeff had a long-sleeved jacket on. As we were warming up, we were debating if we should run in the dark. We could see the trail illuminated by the moon, but we talked about forest animals, twisting an ankle at an unseen hole, etc. As we were stretching, this guy in a car drives up, parks next to us, then gets out and starts running really fast into the trail! Jeff and I looked at each other, and said, ok, I guess we can run too. For good measure, we brought a flashlight Jeff had in his van. Every now and then, I would turn the thing on, just to see if there were any road bumps or ruts, or horse dung.

It was dark, though the moon illuminated the trail. Did I mention it was cold? I knew my body would warm up, but I still had one cotton shirt over my running shirt. We were supposed to do 5 min run, 1 min walk, but it was too cold, so we kept on running, for maybe 15 minutes. We were almost at the Reedy Creek intersection before we stopped. After a while, moonlight turned to daylight, and I now was the only runner on the trail with a flashlight. The plan was to do two "T" routes: Graylyn to Reedy Creek ntersection, right to Airport overlook, back to the intersection, straight to Reedy Creek road, back to the intersection, then back to the Graylyn entrance. Each "T" was 10.4 miles, so the plan was to do it twice.

My HR monitor went through its usual crazy readings, and kept beeping, so I just turned the thing to just show my HR, and let Jeff do the timing. We did 5 min/1 min run/walk intervals.