A Charlie Brown Run

I have noticed a trend in a lot of my runs over the past few weeks - there seems to be be an uncanny amount of runs that have taken place in rain, mist, or significant winds. I've been joking with my wife that I think God is trying to prepare me for something with all the rain and the wind, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find similar weather conditions when I am to run the marathon in January. At times it has almost seemed like I'm Charlie Brown with a dark cloud hanging over my head as I run. Today was one of those runs . . .

Let me back up just a second - I am so pleased with where I am on my training schedule. For my long runs, I've actually been exceeding the training plan that I have been following, mainly because I REALLY have some goals that I want to achieve when I run the race, and I still feel like I'm catching up from the time I spent recovering from the stress fractures. This past weekend my schedule called for 16 miles for a novice, or 17 miles for an intermediate - and I ran 18. One of the reasons I've been pushing my mileage a little bit is because I have read that it is important to have at least 2 runs of 20 miles or more (at most, 22) before your marathon, and the training plan I was using only had 1. Looking at my schedule, I am planning on doing a 20 mile long run sometime this weekend, and then I plan to push it to 22 the next weekend, followed by a recovery long run of 12, and then one more 20 mile long run before I begin my taper (a taper is where you back off on the mileage of your runs for about 3 weeks before your race so that your body is ready to rock and roll for 26.2 miles).

For Thanksgiving, we are traveling to the Outer Banks to spend some time with my wife's family. It's a nice change, as we usually head up to PA for Thanksgiving, but this year they are all coming down here. The house we are renting was open all week, so Jenn took the entire week for vacation, and joined her mom for a little R and R, while I maintain the house with the boys till they get done with school on Wednesday. Anyway, I've been doing my long run on Friday or Saturday, and the thoughts of doing my long run this coming Saturday before I have to sit and drive back home was not appealing, so I was thinking I'd do it on Friday. But then my wife had a brilliant idea (one of the thousands of reasons I married her): why not run it on Thursday morning? That way I could eat all I want for Thanksgiving and not have to pay for it later! Plus, I'd have the rest of the day Thursday and plus Friday not having to do anything at all - except hang out in the hot tub. So my plan right now is to eat a good, solid meal Wednesday night in Nags Head, and then get up and run 20 miles on Thanksgiving morning. Stupid? Maybe.

So, that being said, today I knew I needed to get in a light and easy run, and my schedule called for an easy 5. The weather forecast was for rain all day, however, though it was quite cloudy, it had barely rained all day. I felt like I was actually safe going for my run late this afternoon. Yes, it was a risk of rain, but it had been all day and it hadn't really rained. Stupid? Yes. I ran an out and back course, and of course before I got to the turn-around, it started to sprinkle. With about a mile and a half to go the sprinkle became a pour. As I was running on the sidewalk of a busy street, I felt like an idiot as all the cars passed me, and I could only imagine what the people in the cars were saying because I knew what I would be saying if I was in the car. Long story short (which if I wanted to make a long story short, I simply would have edited this a bit more), I finished the run completely drenched from a downpour - and it stopped raining about the time I finished my run. Here are the splits for my 5 mile easy run:
Mi 1 - 9:12.18
Mi 2 - 8:51.84
Mi 3 - 8:43.94
Mi 4 - 8:30.04
Mi 5 - 8:40.95

Total = 43:58.95