Tough as Nails vs Dumb as Rocks

The dark portion of Saturday morning has come and gone. That must mean I've done a long run. The schedule claimed it was time to go up to 9 miles. I've never gone past 8 miles before, but I'm a game kinda guy. I knew I shoulda listened to the route instructions better but, I guess I was too busy thinking "my don't I look like the handsome boy in my new shoes!" We headed out on the first loop for 5 miles. Felt strong, felt good. I took the hills as a regretable yet very personal challenge... so the pace stayed entirely too fast. One 5 mile loop down no problem. So I head out on the slightly less obvious, second, 4 mile loop. North on the east side of the river and across the 11th street and south on the west side to the pedestrian. Somewhere in here is when Kendall and I start noticing that we're not seeing the fast horses that should be up in front of us somewhere. Just a bunch people named Blade, Laser, Blazer, and my fitness consigliere Meechele... anyway. The hammer I've had down is now getting a little heavy, so I pull it back and notice no one is catching up with us either. Back across the pedestrian and up the midland valley and Eddie starts trying to do heat and humidity modified math in his head. I decide this run is getting long. But I always suspect that I've gone farther than I'm supposed to, so I dismiss the idea. Finally pulling back into Veterans Park I notice people that I know were behind me are headed for the cars already. Sure enough I find we went the wrong way. Smart estimates put us at a second loop of 6 miles or a total of 11 miles. 2 bloody extra miles! I coulda been back in bed a minimum of 18 minutes sooner The mapping on run.com puts this route at 10.78 miles. Personally I think I should get .22 miles worth of "that sucks" credit. Next on my list is a garmin. Then I will know when something is wrong and I can stop right there instead of continuing in ignorance. Course on the other hand I am feeling kinda tough, and saucy!