Trail Running - Good vs. Evil (mostly evil)

I don't like to talk about the worst effing run of my extensive two year running life, but since nobody asked here I go:

Short Version - C & O Canal, December 2010

The Alabaster Runner and I were visiting his father and brother in West Virgina before Christmas and smack in the midst of intense marathon training, so we decided to have our scheduled 18 mile long run on the C & O Canal early one morning. We packed our energy bars, water, Garmin, and headed off into the bone chilling temperatures that actually froze my water bottle several miles into the run. The run was doomed from the start, the trail was icy (I didn't even know dirt could be icy, what a delightful treat!), rocks were everywhere (we both were wearing Vibram bikilas), and the Alabaster was in a foul mood because we severly underestimed how much water two people needed on an 18 mile training run. After about 10 miles of this incredibly fun run, our legs felt like lead and it was a struggle to not fight over the last remaining drops of water. (If I'm recalling events correctly, I'm pretty sure this run led to our first sincere irritation with each other as newlyweds - that says a lot).

Because of the above reasons, we turned back early in the run and cut it down to a 16 miler - although we still had to walk an additional two miles back to his dad's house in the bitter cold. I still refer to this horrific experience as "the run where I lost my faith in God" only to have my belief system restored when I discovered freshly brewed coffee back at the house.

I bring this story up now because I have my first trail run since that experience scheduled for tomorrow morning. Granted it's only a five mile run with significantly warmer temperatures, but I'm still trying not to wet myself at the thought of another trail run. Trail runs aren't always so damaging to someone's pysche right?

As peaceful at winter trail running looks, it was comparable to hell on earth.

So hot....

To further drain my bank account this month on running related items, I signed up for HARRC 7 km race at 7 p.m. on August 26^th in Harrisburg. Odd distances like 7 km always get my attention because I relish getting a new PR without any real exertion on my part. I’m praying that a 7 p.m. race is on the cooler end of the day because the past few days of running have been dreadful. The heat has been zapping my energy, leaving me mentally and physically drained during the runs. And not that good kind of “wow, I just completed a 15 mile run with hills” drained – more like the “its so godd*** hot out here I would subject myself to a Ryan Reynolds movie just for a cool breeze” drained.

I commented to the Alabaster Runner that I’ll be happy once this insufferable heat spell is over – only to realize a moment later that this “heat spell” is actually more commonly referred to as summer and lasts for another two months. On a purely vain note, this summer is also causing some epidemic tanning issues from running; I don’t even where to begin on fixing criss-crossed tan lines. With no other options available, I’m forced to gut it out in the sun’s rays and continue taking cold showers like an athletic-ish psychopath (I vaguely remembering reading that only the most insane murderous people take cold showers, but my base of knowledge is US Magazine so I might be slightly off).    

 The only one taking the brunt of the heat worse than me is my poor double coated pug, Hershey. We took all the dogs out for a 10 minute walk yesterday and Hershey decided halfway through that she just would rather live in the cornfields than walk another step in this arduous journey. She plopped down on the soil and gave me huge pug eyes that read, “screw you and your exercise, this is clearly a solid case of animal abuse”.

It’s hot. It’s sticky. And to quote a great line from a movie whose title I can’t remember and don’t care enough to research – “we must be a mile from the sun”. Take it easy on your runs everyone, unless you live somewhere significantly cooler – in which case, I need to visit you immediately.