Finally

Saturday morning I woke up at 7 a.m. to the sound of rain. And wind. Well, and my alarm of course. I never wake up without the alarm. We were enjoying a New Year's getaway at Pond Mountain Lodge near Eureka Springs. To stay on the LRM training team schedule, I'd planned a good, hilly 16-mile route around town and was really looking forward to it, even though it meant running solo instead of in LR with the team. I'd run long around Eureka before and really enjoyed the interesting scenery and change of routine.

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The day looked nothing like this stock photo of Eureka Springs.
It was cloudy, rainy, and cold.
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I lay in bed thinking about whether to go or not. I had so been looking forward to this run, having missed a week's worth of mileage during the holidays in OKC. Really, I knew I should just get on with it and go. We're supposed to train in the rain and all other elements nature throws at us, save lightning or serious ice, because who knows what Arkansas's skies will offer on race day? Running in the rain is a chance to learn how you'll handle wet shoes, water in your eyes, the very annoying swish-swish sound of a windbreaker/rain jacket, and high humidity. It follows--and I bet you already thought of this--that this is also a time to discover new and valuable information about where your body chafes when it has more-than-just-sweaty clothing rubbing allll your special places for hours on end. These are the days when you thank the goddess for a wonderful product called BodyGlide.

Actually, it wasn't the rain that had me worried, it was the sound of our awnings whipping in the wind. Wind plus hills = harder than I wanted to run. Grumbling, I got up and dressed, going back in forth in my mind all along about what I'd do.

"You could go tomorrow," I thought, "Watch, it'll probably be perfect weather tomorrow."

"Yeah, but then you'd have to eat right all day and not drink tonight, when really you want to eat junk and enjoy a bottle of wine with friends."

"You're supposed to train in the rain. Just go."

"Damn it."

It would be prudent to add here that I was then on about Day 4 of the snothead cold that's going around. It settled into my head, sinuses, and chest the day after Christmas and has stayed around since. Early in the week, those days when we sat around the hospital all day waiting on the doc to see my grandmother, it was a throat-chest thing. You know how hospitals feel germy, even on a good day? Try sniffling or coughing or blowing your nose in a waiting room. You can literally see people cringing and squirming. They can't get away from you fast enough.

By Saturday, it had moved up out of my chest--hallelujah for Advair--but was still doing a steady job of clogging my nose and head. From what I've learned, you can run when you're sick if you don't have a fever and the crud is above the neck. Stuffy sinuses, runny nose, itchy throat, etc. are going to make for a nasty, uncomfortable run, but you won't do any harm other than chapping your nostrils a little more than normal. However, if the mucus has set up camp anywhere below the neck (e.g. congested cough and non-running-related body aches) you're a no go.

So there I was, fully dressed. Tights, two light layers of long-sleeved shirts, socks, shoes, fluorescent yellow reflective windbreaker, hat, gloves. Ready to go.

Not quite. The whiny voice in my head said it didn't want to go, that it wanted to crawl back in bed and stay warm and dry. Sleeeeeeeeeeepy.

I lay down on the wood floor. I'm sure this looked ridiculous. It felt ridiculous.

What the heck? Maybe the rain would stop. Maybe at least one of my stuffy sinuses would open up so I could breathe.

I can sleep anywhere.

The next thing I knew it was 8:20 and I'd apparently argued myself right back to dreamland for an extra 45 minutes. On a wood floor.

However, the rain HAD stopped. Mostly. It was down to a light drizzle, which I could totally handle. The wind came and went, but I decided to get over it. Down went a PB&J sandwich and I was out the door. Sometimes getting that far is harder than the whole run itself.

I've done it before, but it's crazy dangerous to run on the shoulders of Highway 23 outside Pond Mountain, so I drove the short distance into town to do a route I'd clocked the day before using the car's odometer. From the Best Western parking lot at the intersection of 62 and the Historic Loop, it's 6 miles roundtrip to run the loop up through town, around by the Crescent Hotel, back through the housing area to the intersection where the other Best Western is, and back. It's easy to tack on 2-mile out-and-backs on Main Street--it's a mile from where it splits off Spring in town, down to the old train depot.

The run wasn't bad. Most of it was nice even, although I'd overdressed and was hot. And extremely annoyed with the raincoat sound. By starting at 8:30 though, I was out before most of the Saturday tourist traffic got going, meaning I was free to run down the middle of the roads, where there's zero cant. Happy shins and knees.

By the time I got to mile 8, though, I was realizing that I wasn't as close to being over the cold as I'd thought. Despite proper fueling and hydration and being mentally and somewhat physically prepared for the hills, I was out of energy. This was tot my usual "I'm getting tired and cranky around mile 8" feeling, but a more serious "This doesn't feel right...maybe you ought to call it a day and try to get healthy."

Time to evaluate the big picture. I was tired and achy, and traffic had picked up. Knowing from experience that my level of alertness would decrease dramatically during the 13-16 mile range, I decided that it would not be safe or wise to continue the full route.

Feeling defeated, but knowing it was the right decision, I finished out the last two uphill miles to the car, making the outing a round 10-miler. 1:42.

At least I'd gotten to run. Finally.

On the bright side, I'm pleased to report zero chafing. After all, I've had three years to devise a successful Body Glide defense strategy, details of which are not appropriate for sharing on the world wide web. If you are a new runner who needs to know more about this sensitive subject, talk to me in person.