Saturday Run (12.75mi) 2/27/2010

Since it was too rainy for the trails, I took the dog out for an extended road run.

Weight: 138 lbs.
Time: 1:45

I had planned to do a long run, but it was too wet for my usual long distance trail run. Also, it's close enough to my next race that I didn't want to push myself too hard.  Lastly, I was feeling too lazy to want to take the dog out for a short neighborhood loop, dry us both off, put her in the garage, then go back out into the rain for another several miles.  I decided to take the dog with me, but not take any hydration or snack for myself, feeling that it was only fair since the dog wasn't taking anything either.

Since my wife was at work, and the weather "difficult" I kept my route simple, just going up to Lynn Road and heading to Newbury Park before turning around and coming back.  This turned out to be a very interesting course, with nice straight stretches and some good hills that didn't kick my butt.

The dog, of course, didn't appreciate the circumstances as we started out in a heavy, driving rain.  Every intersection we crossed was flooded such that my feet were always submerged.  After the first couple of miles, however, she stopped trying to shake herself dry and got into the run.

For quite some time I thought that we were the only runners out that morning.  It wasn't until about four miles in that we saw another runner, followed shortly by several others.  All told, there were fewer than a dozen that we saw, but all of them were in Newbury Park.  Apparently, I was the only runner in Thousand Oaks crazy enough to be out in the downpour.

It turns out that the intersection we turned around at was only a couple of miles from the trail head I usually start from when running to the coast.  My next goal will be to do the entire ~18 mile loop from home to the trail head and back.  (Bonus super-crazy goal: do the entire ~36 mile loop from home to the coast and back.)