Coach gave me a choice for my long run today.  He said run for 75-80 minutes, but do whatever you like.  It was an easy choice for me. I ran trails. Those trails turned out to be very wet.

Winter weather arrived this weekend. It rained and snowed all day today, but I didn’t think it would be too bad on the trails.  I dressed up warm, because the outside temperature was in the mid 30’s ‘F.  I also put on my rain jacket, because it was snowing when I left for the park. In the end, I dressed perfectly. I didn’t get cold and I didn’t overheat.

I wasn’t sure which trail to take.  I wanted to do a loop, so I picked the Red Trail at North Park.  I guessed that the trail would be about six miles long.  At my typical trail pace, that would put me right at that 75 minute total run time.

Well I guessed wrong about the trail.  Not only was it 8 miles long, but it also had 1,200 feet of elevation gain.  My run therefore took a lot longer than I had planned. That seemed to work out though.  Early on in the run, I was struggling a little bit, but the longer I ran, the stronger I felt.

The trail was very wet in places, so that meant I got wet feet.  I didn’t mind this while I was running, but my feet got cold on the drive home.  I forgot about the need to bring dry clothes and shoes to change into after my run.  I seem to make this mistake on my first cold, wet run every winter. You think I would have learned by now… ah well.