For all my running faults - and I have many - I consider my imperviousness to the elements one of my strengths. I'll run in rain and sleet and snow and midday heat - not necessarily without complaint, but I will. But this week has just been too much. Although our terrorism news has probably (rightly) taken precedence in the international news, our weather has been unbelievable. In particular in the midlands, where I live - the rain has been of biblical proportions.
We've had regular days where a month's rainfall fell in a day and finally, last Monday, it all got too much. Here on the farm we have a big lake which overflowed everwhere, the normally quiet stream that runs off it turned into a wild raging river and some of the people on the farm were even flooded out of their houses - it's been quite disastrous. Thankfully we've suffered very little apart from a few leaks..
But back to the running - now that has suffered. I run most of my runs - including the dreaded 20 milers - on a 1.4 mile loop on the farm. I know this must seem tedious to many but it's quite varied - some of it's in the woods, some out in the open field, and the running surface is great - only about .3 of a mile is a tarmac road, the rest is all packed dirt / mud. I like running out of my front door - I don't need to bring my drink / food with me (I set up a drinks station), I can stop at the bathroom when I need to and I don't have to worry about traffic. However, as you can imagine this has deteriorated this past week and I had to give up on my run on Wednesday as I sank up to my knees in mud and water.. So I've done rather a lot of my runs on the elliptical which seems appropriate as I always find it hard to cross train - I've had few options this week! I finished off with 13 miles yesterday with my friend Sal which we ran nearby on country lanes - it would have been great were it not for the fact I'd hosted a dinner party the night before and had had too much wine and champagne and not enough sleep - it was a slow run! However, I struggled through and felt better for it.
Finally - I'm hoping to record some content this week for The Extra Mile podcast - Nigel, Kevin and MarathonChris have put this together and I am so impressed. I am going to try to not complain again about being busy because how they fit this in besides the rest of their lives I do not know..
Till then, happy trails and hope it's drier where you are!
