This week I ventured into the Forest for 2 of my runs. I live within 5 minutes of an awesome Forest with mountain bike, running and horse riding trails. I figure seeing how the Hanmer Half is a forest run, I better get the feeling of it.  I ventured into Bottle Lake Forest on Thursday morning for my easy run…hmmmm, easy? Ended up that the map for the forest at the entrance ain’t so good. I should also point out that it was 6 in the morning as well as the fact that even with proper city streets my sense of direction can be appalling. I’m hoping that this does NOT become a regular feature of this blog – just last week I wrote about how my iphone saved my life…and now again *sheepish grin*

I was unsure of where I was a few times, thankfully I always run with Runkeeper to keep track of my mileage and pace. And thankfully Runkeeper’s (or Apple’s) built in iPhone GPS is pretty fantastic. So, I made it out of the forest without getting hideously lost, but my run that was planned to be 4-5K turned into 7.5K! It was a great run, with wonderful scenery including a rabbit that decided to track me for a few minutes – I didn’t manage to get a photo though

So my lack of personal built-in GPS, and a bit of stupidity, pushed me just a little bit further than I’ve ran in a very long while…and it was awesome!

Check out the wander I had over at Runkeeper. I’ve kept this map public so you can see how much of a crazy loop I got into. When I returned again on for my run on Sunday, I decided to consult with Runkeeper more frequently and the loop makes much more sense.

*Most of my maps on Runkeeper are private because I usually leave from home and I do not want any stalkers showing up at my place