Enough already Mother Nature

Seriously, I’ve had enough challenging training runs in ridiculous weather conditions and I’m prepared for anything, but enough is enough. This weekend was a soaking wet mess. Saturday I did my soggy 16 miler with DFMC in Lexington, then yesterday I had the last of the Wild Rover Series in Lowell, the Hynes 5 miler.

As soon as I woke up yesterday I was grumpy and did not want to go out in the nasty weather to run a 5 mile race. No matter how many times I told myself, “It’s just 5 miles” I still felt like my brain was dragging my body kicking and screaming out the door to go to the race.

I showed up and got my bib number and the race shirt (which is wicked nice) then I found a few crazy friends that showed up too. We all huddled together and talked about how much it was going to suck and how wet we were going to get and how none of us wanted to be there, but we all were there.

With about 15 minutes to go before the start we walked to our cars to put our stuff away and then headed to the start line. The start was next to a small building with covered entry ways so we squished as many runners as possible into the entry ways and waited. We weren’t the only ones seeking refuge from the rain there. There was a homeless man sleeping against the wall in one of the entry ways. I bet he was a mixture of pissed that we were being loud and happy that we were blocking the wind for a little bit.

The announcer called “5 minutes to the start” and asked people to line up, but no one moved. We all wanted to wait until the last possible second to get out of the shelter and into the monsoon. One minute to go, we gathered in the street and grumbled collectively about the weather. The gun went off and away we went.

The miles actually went by pretty fast. My legs still a little tight from the 16 miler the day before, but I watched the clocks at each mile marker and maintained my pace for the first 2 miles then got into my groove and started to pick it up a little each step. In the 3rd mile we had a tail wind for a little bit so I made up some time. The 4th mile was like running through a wind tunnel, 30mph gusts fighting us the entire way. Then the last mile and my brain and body were in synch, knowing the end was near. I kept thinking hot shower and a cup of tea. I had negative splits and finished the race with a strong kick across the line, grabbed my medal and kept walking straight to my car and my dry clothes.
Another insane training run in the books. Now please, Mother Nature, could we have just a few weeks of nice weather followed by a little bit of a cold spell in the middle of April. 50s and overcast with the sun coming out later in the day would be nice. We’ve all put up with the challenges you’ve thrown at us this training season, now be nice and give us a great race day forecast. :)