Long run yesterday ... in the rain

18km was on the plan yesterday. Saturday, total rest day, the weather was perfect for running ... as I walked back from the netball courts for about the third time I was muttering about how finally we had a great running day, but I knew I needed a rest day, plus of course, three trips to the netball courts, two drives up to Waikanae for soccer drop offs, a couple of drives down to the gym for gymnastic and cheerleading drop offs ... well, I'm not sure a run would have worked into my day at all anyway!

So yesterday, I wake up ... raining, again. I spent all of last winter running and it hardly ever rained when I ran ... the last month, all it seems to have done here is rain and rain. I got up, I had a card class to run over in Lower Hutt in the afternoon so there was no option of waiting for the rain to stop. 7.45am I got out of bed ... and the rest of the house was still asleep *sigh*. Had my breakfast, got myself organised and off I went. Muttering about how I really really need to get my act together and buy that good running jacket I keep promising myself! It rained steadily for about the first 7-8km, and wasn't so bad ... just very wet. About 10k it seemed to stop a bit and I was thinking, hey! this isn't so bad ... at about 12k the heavens laughed at me as they opened up and it bucketed down, bucketed down to that point where it was a mission to find places on the footpath where I could place my feet without them landing in a few inches of water.

I'd decided before I left that even though it was a long, slow run day ... that at about 13km I would up my pace to 5:30/km, with this infuriated sore leg, I have really slowed down - I was just starting to run my shorter runs comfortably at 5:30/km ... now they're more like 5:45ish, and I was hoping to run the Wellington Half next week at 5:30/km, not much hope of that now - but I did want to push myself to that pace when I was completely warmed up and should have tired legs, just to see how it felt. I managed a km like that, slowed down for the next km, and tried it again at 15km and just couldn't get myself to that pace. Not sure how much the sloshing shoes and drowned rat look would have helped/not helped. But I think I've got to face reality that there is no way I can run that speed for a whole half marathon.

So the injury? Was feeling pretty good, but the last week or so, it is definitely slowing me down and not getting any better. After the half on Sunday I am definitely going to take a week completely off running, maybe two to see if that fixes it. I'm supposed to start week 1 of 18 weeks of marathon training that first week, but I'm pretty sure even missing the first two weeks will be okay, I'm pretty sure I've got enough base fitness that will still be okay to start right into Week 3. Very frustrating though ... definitely not what I had planned, I'd hoped to train up to a great Half Marathon at Wellington and being more than ready to dive straight into some good, hard marathon training.

So, cross training today which = delivering on my bike ... and the sun is actually out, yay!

Oh ... and GO! the All Whites ... 1-1 against Italy ... Wooooohoooooooo!!