I really wanted to run fast mile repeats today. I would've got out in the afternoon, but the legs were still sore. Two loops at Trexler did a number on the quads yesterday. After a nap, I felt better in the evening.
The plan was to go to the Nor-Bath Trail. I looked at a weather map and saw that it was going to rain in about an hour. I headed there right away. Weather.com actually said rain wasn't supposed to start until 8:15. It was very wrong. It began to rain as I was driving there at 6:30.
Two different people were getting off the rainy trail as I was beginning my run. They must've thought I was crazy. All I had was shorts and short sleeves. That wasn't bad, but with the rain, it did get a little crazy.
Since it was raining, I only could do a mile warmup. I really wanted to try two miles to get the legs loose. They didn't feel great after a mile, but I picked it up anyway. Since the rain messes with my Garmin, I locked the bezel. Therefore, I had no idea of pace.
I think I only lasted about a quarter mile of fast pace. It was tough on my legs, but battling the rain was even more difficult. When I had to stopped at a road crossing, I gave up on running hard. Instead, I just cruised along. I figured I would run 5 miles total.
I started to feel a little better. I passed a young guy that was running too. I was glad to see that I wasn't the only crazy runner. I ran past Bicentennial Park. The warmup mile was an 8:13. This somewhat fast mile 2 was 7:34.
I turned around at mile 2. I didn't feel like going out the extra half of a mile. I figured that I could add on later. The rain was getting worse and worse. I didn't try to, but because of it, I ended up picking up the pace. The 3rd mile was a brisk 7:01.
By the halfway point, it was raining heavy. I was now getting quite soaked. The trail was getting sloppy too. I didn't really want to run on pavement, but I opted to go out on the paved park path. That is open and it was actually quite cold with the rain. I saw the kid running again. I was able to add about .7 miles to the run.
Mile 4 was kind of quick too, at 7:11. I got to the end of the path at 7.76 miles. I turned around and ran out another .1 miles and then came back. I was soaked by then and thrilled to be done. The quads tired some by the end, so the final mile was a 7:38.
It was a nice, short run in the rain. I do like running in the rain, but this was a bit much. I was soaked with less than 40 minutes of running. At least I was only running short today. My legs have struggled to recover.
This is a good test for my legs. I want to get in back to back 15-20 mile easy weekend trail runs. One day will be at Jacobsburg. I am not sure about the other day. I might need to rest a lot next week. Whatever the case, I need to focus on my ultra now. It's only three weeks away.
5 miles - 37:35 (7:31 pace)
No comments:
Post a Comment