Running wild

So I have decided that if meditation is a science (and the Dalai Lama says it is and I'm not one to argue with the Dalai Lama) then running must be an art. I figure this is true because no system of analysis can explain to me why some days - often the days I think I won't be able to run very far - I can run on and on, and other days I can't. This morning I thought I'd go and do a "short" run in the park. My energy stores weren't particularly high and it was late morning before I could go so all of this - I thought - dictated I wouldn't go far. But lo and behold I get to the park, it is an absolutely perfect day (about 24 degrees with a fabulous breeze, the kind that makes sailors very happy). But still I think, I won't go too far, I won't push myself etc. etc. I try reversing my usual route but I get kind of misdirected and end up going up the NB trail, away from my usual route. Oh well I say, I'll go up here a piece and then double back, much as I hate to double back. But I start going and think, oh well, why not go until I hit 3km and then if I double back it'll be exactly 6km to the car and I can check out that path that supposedly follows along the road back towards where I park the car, but I can never find (the path, not the car). So the NB trail is perfect, the weather is perfect, I start coming back and who should be coming down the path but my bestest bud - who has already run some unspeakable number of kilometres. Should have known it was him right away from the Communist Youth League shirt. We check in on how far we've gone and where we're going, arrange for him to cover for me at a meeting and run off in opposite directions. I'm still thinking, yup 6km, that'd be fantastic really, I'll just veer off at that trail beside the road.... Funny thing about that trail beside the road. It's sort of like Brigadoon - it appears and disappears at will. It's marked in yellow on the little park map plain as day. I have been on it. I saw it during this particular run. But I can never quite figure out how to *get* on to it. In any case I missed it again and discovered myself back on my old loop and ended up running 8.25km in order to get back to the car. Felt great though. I had paced myself more carefully using a 10/2 run/walk ratio and maybe that helped keep me going, but the last time I did over 8km I didn't do any of that and none of the parameters of this run applied (except for great weather). So, it must be magic (incidently Sting's "every little thing she does is magic" was going around in my head, maybe the pacing was right) or art. It just happens...