Well today has been a miserable day outside to say the least. It has rained the entire day and didn't let up much. Since I saw rain in the forecast, I decided that I would just get up whenever and run if there was a window. I thought about trying to get out before lunch, but as 11 AM rolled around, it was pouring. I headed to Panera for a light lunch before running.
I got home and was planning on doing my run around 1:30. There was supposed to be a cross country meet and I wanted to get it in before then. At this point, the weather didn't matter. Then Tom, who was race director for the race I volunteered at over the weekend, asked on facebook if anyone wanted to run at 3:30. Right around that time, I saw that the cross country meet was cancelled. I figured I'd rather run in the rain with someone than alone, so I decided to wait until 3:30.
Looking at the weather throughout the day, it looked like we would have a clear window at 3:30. I was sort of disappointed because I wanted to try out my new jacket in the rain. Then things changed as it got near 3:30. Something must have shifted because suddenly it was pouring when I left the house.
We agreed to meet up at the Plainfield Recreation Trail. I didn't see Tom's message saying he would be late. I decided to wait until 3:45 and then take off on my own if he didn't show up. I wasn't sure if he would skip the run because of the rain, but I didn't think so. He got there just after 3:40 and we took off.
Surprisingly I got a GPS signal right away. I usually don't in awful conditions like this. Tom had some trouble getting his. We then took off. The plan was to run 4 miles out and back. I was only planning on 8 miles and he wanted to do 10 miles. By the time we started, the rain had calmed down some. It was still steady though.
I had trouble locking my bezel early on. After a couple miles into the run, I noticed that my time was no longer showing. Then I saw it showed when I hit mile 2. At least I knew the watch was still working. Finally, I got it back into the right mode and locked the bezel. The only problem was that with the setting it was in, I didn't know which mile we were actually in. It was just giving me the details of that current mile.
Going out, the miles just flew by, even with the crappy conditions. We talked about training and racing and so forth. Just the usual stuff. It is amazing how much that helps during a run. I really don't remember much of the trail. When I'm running alone, I focus on so many other things.
The other good thing about the rain is that I kept my watch covered by my jacket and didn't look at it as frequently as usual. That made things go quicker too. I guess one of the things that was quicker as well was the pace. Tom wanted to run an 8:45 pace. I was fine with that, but I just seemed to pull us along a little faster than that. Tom had to slow me down a few times.
My watch was a tenth of a mile behind his, so we went out a little farther. We turned around when I hit mile 4. My GPS might have been off. Who knows.
Coming back was interesting. At one point, we were in the clear and it was barely raining at all. At another point, it was pouring pretty good. With a lot of trees around, it typically wasn't too bad.
As we got to the final two miles, we were both pretty soaked. In addition to the new jacket, I was sure glad that I bought a hat a few weeks back. That helped keep the rain out of my face. Although I was a little hot early on and kept the jacket opened a some throughout the run, it worked well. I needed a lightweight jacket to run in for days like this and this one will certainly do. I wasn't completely dry, but it kept away enough water.
After sloshing through the last couple miles, we were done. The final mile was quite quick. It didn't seem hard either. None of the run did. Not surprisingly, Tom just opted to call it quits after 8 miles. If it wasn't raining, I might have run the 10 miles with him.
It was actually a fun run. I love running in the rain. It beats the heat any day of the week. Running with someone was a huge help. I probably would've been miserable by the end if not for Tom. He's asked people to run before, but I usually already had my run done for the day. It was good to get out there and run with him.
With two relatively easy days this week, I feel quite rested. Tomorrow is my key workout session. I am going to try the 6 mile repeats under a 7 minute pace each. I failed at that last week. Hopefully easing off earlier in the week will be a big help. I'm planning on running that on the D&L again. I might start farther up the trail though. I still haven't run the middle section of the race course and want to get on that sometime. It looks like more rain tomorrow, but I'm still hoping for a good day.
8 miles - 1:06:52 (8:22 pace)
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