Friday, February 10, 2012

Strike While the Pavement is Wet

When I started running in 2010 on of the first things I learned was how much fun running in the rain could be.  I started running in the late summer/early fall that year, and had the opportunity to run in the rain on several occasions (later this would be snow).  Considering the area I live in is classified as a desert, I don't get the opportunity to run in the rain all that often (Yes, SE Washington is a desert, contrary to the belief that the whole state is rainy and gray like Seattle).  I had planned on running before work yesterday morning, but alas, the bed had other plans for me.  I knew I would be going out sometime during the day, and the decision on when to run became quite clear when it started raining around 10 yesterday morning.

At 10:45 I wandered out to the car, drove on down the park and prepared to do my thing.  At this point I feel a clarification is in order.  The park I run in has something like 6 bathrooms placed about 1 mile intervals.  My daily runs start at the farthest north of these bathrooms, where I quickly change and get moving.  Nothing new yesterday, change lock the car, set the phone and off we go.

My mind and body had two different thoughts about the run yesterday.  The mind was like "hey, we should try for five" and the legs were like "Umm, we are sticking to three thank you very much."  With this debate ongoing, I took off north through the rain, though to my dismay, it wasn't raining as hard as I thought it was.

It didn't take long for my left calf to settle the how far are we going to run argument.  Since the path has marking every half mile, and I had started just before one of these markers, I decided to the through four of these markers.  The first marking off about a tenth of a mile from the start and the last being near 1.5 miles.  I was enjoying the run, nice, easy and smooth, running just past the WSU Tri-Cities campus then turning around just before the industrial plant out north.  The turn came in at 1.7 miles.  As I was cruising back I noticed that the rain had picked up a bit, as the noise was noticeable on the leaves littering the ground.  I probably dropped back the pace another 10 seconds per mile or so through the second half of the run, as the left leg was just a bit argumentative.  I was lost in my thoughts of the run, and my training plans for the summer, so I was only barely aware of the sore leg.  And finally I was back at the car, 30 minutes and 3.4 miles.  It really was a nice run, even if I did use the fast shoes for the easy run.

Anyway, on to more pressing matters.  My friend and I are meeting to discuss our training and travel plans for San Fran this weekend, my guess is that we'll be signed up by Sunday afternoon.  I also plan on signing up for the Portland Shamrock run at the same time, most likely for the 15k.  However, the most important thing to discuss in this close out, is Bloomsday.  

Anyway guys, have fun out there, and have a great weekend.

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