Long Runs and snuffly noses.... Great.

Quick September review and training thoughts. 110 miles and 14,652 calories later, I have finally gotten back to training for 26.2. Coming up first is The Middle Half Marathon on Saturday.

This past Saturday had a 16 mile Long Run listed on the schedule. Of course the rains were not letting up, as it has rained over the past 4-5 days. Headed out to the Greenway at 7:00am with a ton of dark, gloomy clouds in the distance towards Nashville. I went ahead and thought that the rains may stay north, and set out on the Murfreesboro Greenway headed south towards Barfield Cresent trail head. 1 1/2 mile into the trip, the clouds opened up. I raced along toward the I-24 underpass on the Greenway and let the rains blow by, so out again I went. I played this cat-and-mouse game with the rain several more times: find a tree, get back to the underpass, find another tree. Every time the rain would pour down, then slack off. I took the opportunity twice to wring out my socks and dri-fit shirt.

What a great invention the dri-fit type of shirts are. They sure do a great job in wicking the moisture away and keeping the body relativly dry, but gosh do they STINK. I'm going to need to try some of the newer laundry detergents specifically for the dri-fit clothes. Same goes for the shorts (NO, I didn't take them off to ring them out) but they do a nice job of getting the wettness away. The shorts, however, keep the moisture on them, and quite often feel like wet camping tents after a run.

So, after several starts and stops and re-starts, I said "Screw it" and just sucked it up and ran. I know that I don't have a whole lot of opportunities to get in the longer runs, so I just went with it, soaking shoes, shirt and all. So, for the first 5-6 miles was starting and stopping, not a true test of the long run. I ended up with 16.5 miles on the day around 2 hours and 40 minutes - sometimes in a down pour and sometimes between showers.

See that Germ-X bottle up there? Yep, the kids are sick. Between the middle and elementary schools where the kids go, there are several hundred kids out of class. We took Kayla to the doc yesterday and she has strep. Taylor went last week and had a sinus infection that really resembled strep. So its not so surprising that I am feeling the BUG creeping my way. Yeah, this should make Saturday interesting, to say the least.

Next up... The Middle Half .. hopefully.