Yesterday's 14-miler was a rainy, foggy one. It was like running through pea soup, as the saying goes. I couldn't see more than 30 feet in any direction, which made crossing busy Hwy 11 interesting. I had to use my ears more than my eyes on this run.
The whole run started out kind of crappy. I ran at my mom and dad's house after church, so I had to bring my running stuff with me. I forgot my sports bra, Garmin and mp3 player. So I couldn't listen to my book, but that's happened before and wasn't that big a deal. My sports bra, well luckily there's not much there to support, but my underarmor is compression wear, and that helped, so it was only a minor inconvenience. The watch, though, I almost went home and got it but then decided that I knew my route, and having every second of my run electronically uploaded to Garmin Connect is nice, but not necessary. The important thing is logging the miles. So I did. And it was probably a good thing, because it allowed me to hear the traffic around me long before I was able to see it.
There were two spots on my run where there was standing water all the way accross the road. The first time, I tried to dicely run my way through it, but I got pretty wet. The second time, I walked through it and got less wet, but not much more less. It was only a half mile from home, so I just dealt with it. I really don't like running in the rain. The difference between this run and the 20-miler I did in the rain a few weeks ago was that it wasn't as windy, so it wasn't as cold. My first two or three miles were fine, it was just wet out, and I started thinking it wouldn't be too bad if it would just stay like that. But then it started raining and rained pretty much the whole rest of the way.
It was only 14 miles, but I like knowing where my pace is at and when I should be drinking and eating and rotating my right shoulder (I get a pinched nerve or something after long runs in my right shoulder-I find rotating it periodically througout the run helps). I wish I could have had my watch.
On another note, I am starting to get worried about the trail. I haven't been on a trail yet and this race is in two months. There's so much snow this winter. I'm getting a little worried about the trail conditions, but more worried that I won't get to train adequately on the trails. There are two training runs in April organized by the race director and I'm going to do them both. I'm going to pick every brain I can and get advice and nuggets of wisdom from experienced trail/ultra runners.
I've been thinking about my run/walk strategy and I'm starting to wonder if I really need to do a set 20/5 or whatever. I'm starting to think I should just run when I feel good and walk when I don't. But I can't help but think walking a little bit early on will pay dividends later in the race. I want to talk to some people!
I also started watching some Youtube videos of this race. Oh I'm getting so excited to do this! One guy had a camera on his person that he took video of while he was running. I looked into what kind of camera he might have been using and I believe it was a GoPro Hero 3. I want one! Really bad! But they are really expensive, even on eBay, so I'm going to look into if there are any cheaper ones out there that would do the same thing. GoPro is designed specifically for sports, it's water-proof and there was surprisingly little bouncing. I really want to document this race. I'm going to take a camera and I want to video along the way too. I'm even thinking of taking a voice recorder so I can record some of my thoughts along the way to put into my race report afterwards. So I don't forget things I want to say. Sigh. I suppose I could spring for it. I can afford it, I just don't want to pay that kind of money.
Okay, off to work, 10 miles today, should be slow after yesterday, but hopefully it doesn't rain on my again.
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