Mud, Sore Muscles, and Clean Shoes

Saturday morning -- it's still raining. Since it's cooler than what I want to run in (yeah, I know, don't end a phrase with a preposition -- how would you say that otherwise?), I decided to wait and either hit the dreadmill again when the Y opens at 8 or wait 'til it quits raining. Well, at 8, I'm upgrading the operating system software on my wife's computer so I don't go anywhere and it kept raining for a long time.

Around 3:30, the rain lets up. It's still too close to lunch so I wait until 4:40 and head out. It's cool and very cloudy but no rain -- until I've walked .25 miles and then run .25 miles. It was just barely sprinkling so, do I leave my glasses on the porch or take a chance and run with them on? The problem with glasses is that when it rains, it's harder to see with them on that without them. But, I took the chance -- wrong decision because, within another .25 miles, the bottom drops out. I'm not going to run .5 miles out of my way to leave the glasses on the porch, so off I go. Fortunately, after a couple of miles, there was no more than just a sprinkle every now and then.

What a hard run but I was determined to run at least 6.2 miles. It's rained so much in the last 48 hours, though, that the grass verges are really soggy and traffic is a bit too heavy for me to feel completely comfortable running on the road itself. I really think the reason the run felt so hard was that my shoes were soaked and heavier than normal -- they made my legs feel like lead. At one point, I was in soil so soft that I sank -- now my shoes are covered with mud and the water actually poured over the top of my shoes. Now my legs are really heavy.

I did finish. It was a longer route than I remembered. In addition, because of traffic, I had to run a bit extra at some intersections to go behind the cars. So, rather than 6.2 miles, it was 6.7 miles (no wonder I was tired). A side "benefit" -- my shoes really needed washing anyway but running through the mud made that mandatory. Yesterday was a good day to do that since today is a rest day and they have time (hopefully) to dry.

Because, I guess, of the extra weight in my shoes and running against a fairly stiff breeze for at least half the run, I was dead tired when I finished. And, my quads were really sore. I was glad to get to bed last night -- got 8 hours of sleep which also tells me that the run was harder than normal.

I'm glad I ran yesterday (28 miles for the week) but even more glad for a day off today.

Run well,
Bob