Now, somewhere Arkansas is not actually a city in the state. When you type it into an online maps search, it pops up with ‘Somewhere In Time‘ Arkansas which is located in Winslow. Winslow is pretty far from the place I started. It also gives you an address to Burger King in the state but I don’t know why but maybe Burger King does.

The reason I put somewhere as my starting point is because I was visiting my good old Dad for a few days and he always says he lives around the Rogers, Bentonville, and the North West Arkansas area. I never get a specific answer where exactly he lives. Although he has an address with a particular city, I think the city limits have changed since he has been there so for that reason, we are going with Somewhere, Arkansas for our new running route. And if you want it to be more specific, then you will have to go ask my Dad I suppose.

Off we go!

This one would be turning into quite the journey. I kicked things off from my Dad’s newest Arkansas address which, I didn’t know until I typed this out later, was in the city of Springdale. See what I mean? New city every time.

It was a 55 degree morning and there would be a little rain in the forecast. The plan was to shoot for 20 miles, hit at least 18 miles, and run to the University of Arkansas where my Dad worked. Hopefully I wouldn’t get too lost and it would be about 11 miles there via google maps. I figured I would get lost a time or two but that was part of the fun. To the university I went. Go Razorbacks!

With a left turn out of the neighborhood, I was on my way south! I had run about 4 miles the day before and my feet were feeling fresh. I had a CEU class to attend for work remotely so I would need to be moving at around 9 minutes per mile to make it on time. Would that happen? Only time would tell.

No rain came down upon me in the first mile and I quickly realized that the lack of humidity would feel pretty nice. I felt like I could get some deep breaths in for the first time in a long time. On the con side, it turns out that North West Arkansas has a lot more hills than our neighborhood back in Texas. Most of my long runs so far have been on relatively flat routes with no more than 200 feet of elevation gain. I think I gained at least 100 feet or more in the first mile so I gave my knees a pat and sent a wish to up above for some hill strength. Nothing to do but to keep prodding along!

I cruised through my first mile in about 9:20 and began to pick up the pace. The goal would be to shoot for under 9 minutes per mile after the 4th mile and get around a 8:50 pace overall for the run. Based off my previous long run, my body indicated that this could happen with a tough push towards the end. The forecast indicated that the weather would remain the same so I couldn’t use that as an excuse. I would need to pick out something else such as the amount of pizza eaten the night before…

My second mile came and went and I turned to the side roads to meander towards the university. If I were a car, I could shorten the route to around 8 miles but I don’t think the local police department would be thrilled if I ran along the interstate. My wife would be even less thrilled and since I do like being married quite a bit, it was best to play it safe and sound. Through the zig zag route I went!

The drivers of Arkansas are definitely top class and they gave lots of space when the sidewalk turned into a shoulder a few times. I’m going to have to pass out flyers to Texas drivers to take their driving lessons in Arkansas. Our state needs to step it up! My third mile through the winding back roads was awesome in I was officially under the 9 minute pace. It would be time to not get too fast on the beginning of the run because I would pay for it later. Would I stay disciplined? Maybe.

At mile four, the route indicated a turn to a beautiful sight. A bike path that would wind six miles through the woods all the way to the university! Wowser, what a treasure to behold. I had a huge smile on my face and the route looked gorgeous. North West Arkansas, you got it going on. On top of finding this glorious 8th wonder of the world, the running route also dropped 154 feet in elevation. My pace went down to 8:46 per mile and I had a big smile on my face. Mile 5 felt just as good, even without the drop in elevation, and I went through the mile in 8:44. It was time to cruise and I tried to shut off my mind to enjoy running along the trail.

Miles 6 and 7 followed in similar fashion and I came to the first fork in the road. The trail split and no signs indicated which way was towards the university. I decided to trust my gut and pick the path that seemed south. To the right I went. My phone was quickly dying with its battery (My Iphone7 still going somewhat strong) so I didn’t want to pull up my maps features yet. Before long, the path split again. I was officially getting lost. And this was just as I predicted so maybe this was planned?

I decided that since I had a few more miles to go until the university I better consult a map and quickly saw that I took the wrong initial turn. Taking the wrong turn wasn’t that disappointing because I needed to get in the mileage anyway. Having my gut be wrong was a bummer because the phrase “Trust your gut” means I have an incorrect gut. Must be due to consuming too much fried and spicy food over the years. Next time I will not trust my gut!

Once back on track, I stopped for a quick bathroom use (kinda awkward because a plumber was fixing the other toilet but luckily mine flushed) and continued onwards. Thankful for our plumbers! He is less thankful for us runners if I were to guess.

I passed an hour of running on the clock and I ran through miles 8-10 a little too quickly – just under 8:30 pace. I would love to run this pace for the marathon but I probably hadn’t done all the training to indicate this was a possibility. I wasn’t meaning to go for that pace until I had ran at least 12 miles to see how it would feel on tired legs. Mile 10 also had a 110 feet of elevation which I knew would take a toll later. I finished my last mile on the bike trail in 8:24 and bid it farewell. My turn off the path had arrived with a sign saying the university was only about 0.5 miles away. Time to rumba!

With a heartbreak goodbye to the trail, I saw the first signs of university life. Unfortunately for the blog, the camera feature on my phone stopped working so there would be no pictures of the second part of the run. Time to see if your imagination can give you a pretty good idea of the rest of my route. A better writer could paint the picture so just do your best.

The first signs of university life included youthful faces without wrinkles and white hair (something my face now features) and Greek fraternities and sororities buildings that were massive. Apparently, over 30% of students at the university are involved in some sort of greek fraternity or sorority which is a massive amount of students participating. As I went into mile 11 at the edge of the university, I passed mansion after mansion of these enormous student housing buildings. I later found out that sometimes over 100 people live in these buildings. Oof-da. Some were decked out in Christmas decorations and the students got quite creative. It reminded me that I probably should put away our halloween pumpkins in front of our house at this point.

At this point, the hills began again with a vengence and my pace crept back into the 9 minute per mile zone. Turns out Arkansas has a pretty hilly campus. I decided to make my way down one of the giant hills towards the football field. It was enormous! Probably seats over 70,000 people and my goal was to find a way to run a lap around the field.

I began circling around the stadium and each gate was locked and under tight security. The staff was doing a good job keeping the touristy hooligan runners out and alas, I failed my mission. I could look into the stadium at one point to see the turf and had to call that a good enough of an experience. I decided at mile 12 to make my way towards the university track instead to do some more miles.

Locked again! Man, security at this campus was top notch. I saw the track and there was a more fit man than me pounding out fast sprints. Probably best I couldn’t get on the track because I would have looked embarrassing for the two of us. I gave him an awkward half wave because I was pretty tired and he did not return my greeting. You win some, you lose some. At least I was able to get another mile in and I was approaching the half marathon mark in under 2 hours. The pace was going well!

From mile 13.1 onwards, the hills started to beat my legs down and my next few miles were not pretty. I tried and failed to find some flatter ground and stuck to a parking garage for a bit to give my legs some sort of rest. My hill training in Texas did not prepare me well for this endeavor and I had gained over 1,000 feet in elevation so far with more miles to go. I was used to some hill workouts in Austin with five miles of running or less, but not with double digit runs.

At this point, it became a mental toughness game of how long can your averagerunnerpaul survive. As the minutes passed, it seemed less and less likely that the run would end with a smile. Miles 14 and 15 passed without much fanfare and by mile 16, my phone battery died on me. There went my audiobook (ShoeDog by Phil Knight) and it was time to just guess how far I would be going at this point.

With no phone, I quickly realized that I wasn’t quite sure where my Dad’s office was at and that became priority one. Actually it became priority two because I ran out of water a couple miles ago and that was priority numbero uno. I tried to get into a few buildings and, you guessed it, they were locked. If you need to keep something safe, I recommend using the University of Arkansas. I doubt the college kids can even attend class because nothing was open.

Once I hit mile 16 to 17ish (guessing at this point), the engineering building was open! Well, someone walked out and I quickly ran to the door like a man seeking asylum. I probably looked pretty rough because A: I felt rough, B: I ran out water, and C: I was desperate for water. He let me in but I am willing to bet he got as far away from me as he could after I passed. Luckily, the glorious water fountain was right inside the door and I spent the next couple minutes trying to recover.

After my impromptu aid station stop (thank you engineers!), I went for my next top priority which was finding the finish line. AKA, my Dad’s office. He is actually a way aboveaveragerunner because he ran a 4:04 mile back in the day. I did not inherit those running genes with my mile PR being almost a minute slower. One of my brothers did though and ran a 4:15 mile in high school. Speedy.

I continued running around 9 minute per mile pace and began searching for the office without much luck. It was time to bug the young people of Arkansas and see who could point me in the right direction. I stopped a bus driver first and she had no idea where the business college was. That threw me off because she was a campus bus driver but I didn’t know either so no judgement. The next young person I stopped pointed me in a direction that after a few minutes led me off the campus. It was either a wrong turn by me or a prank. 0 for 2 but at least I got the miles in?

Then, my guardian angel arrived. A young person who actually used the maps feature on his phone to show me the building. Hurray! It was a total different direction than what the last person told me so it must have been a prank or maybe they were just as lost as me.

With a finish line ahead of me about a half mile away, I began running (limping?) towards the end. Oof-da. I started to see the signs for the business college and quickly made my way to the right area. I somehow managed to cover at least a 10k all over this campus and never went down this one street in the business district. It was probably because my philosophy degree guided me towards the arts section of the college instead.

With a last minute push, I made it to the building and hit stop on my $7 Walmart stopwatch (Not a sponsor, I wish). Finish! I wasn’t sure how far I ran so I would need to map it later. My ending time was 2 hours and 50 minutes so I think I was just short of 20 miles. When I mapped it later, I ended up at 19 miles for the day so not too shabby! And for the true victory, the business school was open. I guess businesses close for no one in the good old USA.

Overall

It was a great area to run and such wonderful bike paths! The campus is beautiful and the hills are unforgiving. If you want to go inside any buildings, you probably have to be a student, a worker, or some sort of ninja to break in. I felt in decent shape towards the end which makes me excited for the marathon attempt in a few weeks. I would go for one more long run in about 10 days which will give the final tell tale sign of my fitness. We shall see what happens!

If you get the chance, I recommend visiting North West (Somewhere) Arkansas. Hope your November is going well and if you are celebrating, happy turkey day from this side of the pond!

(PS: Spoiler for the CEU: I was late).