Well, I'm not looking forward to our run tomorrow morning. The forecast calls for a low of 42°F and a high of 52°F, and there will be rain.
The rain started this morning, a cold, mild rain that is desperately needed in our area (where we've had draught conditions most of this year). Showers are expected to turn to heavy downpours this afternoon, and the rain is expected to continue through the night, all day Friday, and into the day on Satruday as well.
Mrs. F and I are trail runners. We have no access to a gym in our town, and we do not own a treadmill. The trail bed is some sort of crushed aggregate material. From the color left and some of the particles left on my shoes, I'm guessing it is a mixutre of sand, gravel, and clay. With 24 hours of rain preceding our next run, I'm afraid that the trail will be a mud pit in places. While I'm not looking forward to soiling my shoes, that's the least of my concerns.
My good old Boy Scout training made me very aware of the dangers of hypothermia (a dangerous drop of the body's core temperature). If it were just cold, we could layer, but with the combination of the rain and the cold temperatures, the risk will be very real. We could, conceivably, run in our rain suits, but my experience hiking in them tell me that they'd just cause us to sweat and feal hot after the first few moments.
We could run without any rain gear. I don't know enough about the science of heat loss to know if our bodies would lose heat more rapidly than we'd generate it by running, but I do know that we would cool down rapidly during the cool-down walk at the end. If the forecast for Saturday were not also calling for rain, I would suggest putting it off for a day.
Running along a road would be one option to avoid mud and muck, but I figure that running on pavement would be even harder on our feet and knees, so I think we'll pass on that option.
Does anyone have any suggestions? There's a college about 30 minutes from us that has an indoor track. I just don't know if we can fit in the extra hour of driving that would be required to get us there and back.
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Mr. & Mrs. F,
ReplyDeleteI just discovered your blog yesterday right after I ran Week 5 Day 2 in the Couch to 5K program! I was excited! I have been surprised by Week 5's jumps in length of time running, but I'm figuring that our endurance has been increasing while we're not realizing it. I am doing the program with a friend, and we will do day 3 on Saturday...the 20 minute run...gulp! We are very humbly proud of our accomplishment. It wasn't very long ago that I could not even run the length of a block.
We've gotten this far, don't quit! You're doing great with the weight loss too. My problem is cutting out desserts which is making my calorie intake too high to lose the extra weight.
I'm not sure what to suggest as far as a place for you to run. The only thing I could think of is if you have a local high school with a track.
~Mare
Thanks for chiming in, Mare. How did you find out about the Couch to 5k program? You're at the same point we're at, so it should prove interesting to see if your experiences mirror our own. Prior to this week, which do you think was the most difficult? I remember thinking I would die during the first day's sets.
ReplyDeleteAlthough we have a new high school, they don't have an indoor track. One of the schools opens its doors to walkers in the mornings, but we haven't asked them about runners. With as labyrinthine as that building is, I'm not sure how much I would want to run it--too many turns, and even steps in some areas.