Nothing A Hot Shower Can't Fix

This morning I set my alarm for nice and early so that I could get myself up and finally go to a group run with Terrier. I haven't been in quite a while and I was really looking forward to it. It also wasn't too bad weather-wise. When I looked at the weather, my phone said that it was in the low 50s and cloudy and would be raining later on (cue ominous music).

I walked from the apartment to the bottom of the park, like I normally do. I actually was passed by one of my teammates who was running there. But, I just really like to walk along the city streets. Too much traffic and stopping and going to worry about (although less so before 6 AM!). Once I got to the park I started running as I was running a little bit late and wanted to make sure I got there on time. I ran to the meeting spot and then a few minutes later, we all headed over to do our drills.

We did our normal drills of strides, high knees, butt kicks, skips and then Coach Spencer had us do a couple that incorporated stretching. We would walk three steps, then do a quad stretch with one leg, walk three steps, stretch the other leg. We also did another one to stretch our hamstrings (hugging your knee to your chest). Definitely a nice way to end the drills.

Our main workout today was a 5-mile tempo run. The run started out just fine. I had probably run about a mile and a half and felt one little drop fall on me. At that moment, I wondered, do birds ever pee on you? Obviously they do the other thing, but I've never heard of anyone being peed on by a bird. (Yes, I'm weird and these are the kinds of things I'm thinking about while running).

About a minute later, it became clear that it wasn't bird pee or something else random that I felt. It was the rain that was supposed to happen today. All day. Somehow I missed that news bulletin. I don't know that it was miserable or even really that bad, but there were some things I would have done differently if I knew it was going to rain: (1) worn contacts instead of glasses (2) worn my old shoes (3) worn pants instead of shorts.

The only really bad part was that I got some sort of stomach cramp around the 2-mile mark and had to walk for a minute or so. It wouldn't have been so frustrating to have to walk if it wasn't raining! At some point I gave up on wearing my glasses and just put them in my pocket. I couldn't see through them anyway and since it was so dark outside, it didn't really make much difference if they were on or off.

The rest of the time running I spent thinking about getting home and taking a really hot shower. That thought was enough to get me through the rest of the run. When I got to the bottom of the park, I did think about the fact that I should really keep going and finish the whole 5 miles, but I was cold and wet enough and I didn't know what I'd really be proving at that point, so instead I just went home. I think that's okay given the circumstances.

And, just as a side note, it's true ... the shower fixed everything and made me feel much, much better. Almost made me think that it's not too bad to run in the rain, given that you had some forewarning.

Run To Meeting Point
Time: 7:30
Distance: 0.81 miles
Pace: 9:15/mile
Calories: 92
Maximum HR: 181
Average HR: 168

Running
Time: 43:58
Distance: 4.40 miles
Pace: 9:59/mile
Calories: 612
Maximum HR: 188
Average HR: 179