No Need to Cancel

100 miles seemed to be an easy accomplishment in the past.  Before January, I had hit 100 miles for each month (except one) for something like 3 years.  The injuries I did get were small enough to keep running through them.  That was until this January of course.  Even though I ran 2 full marathons and a half marathon in January, because of my IT injury, I only totaled about 75 miles.  Lots of rest between the races and then no running after.

In March, I slowly began to run again after therapy and now in April, I am doing long(er) runs and on Saturday, I passed 100 miles for April.  It is good to be (mostly) back.

On Saturday, I had planned on running with Amy on her long run as she prepares for the Madison Marathon in late May.  I was going to run whatever distance she wanted to up to 20 and hopefully be able to keep up with her and not crash at the end.  We planned on running early and going to the same trail I ran on last weekend because she had not run on it yet.  Having plans for a run make it a ton harder to cancel which helped this time.

Friday night caused me some worry as the forecast called for rain all morning and into the afternoon.  I had already checked the schedule for the Pettit Center but they were not opening for runners until 9:00.  I woke up in the middle of the night to rain already but we had already planned to run in the rain so we were not cancelling.  I woke up again a little after 4 and the rain had stopped but the radar showed more on the way.  I picker Amy up at 5:30 and we headed to the trail starting a little after 6:00.  We go lucky for 6 miles and had no rain.  Then a little started, then a lot came down.  We chose to only go 15 since the rain was coming and at the half way point, a full 7 1/2 miles from the car, the rain was coming down hard.  We laughed about it and turned back toward the car, into the wind, and into some tiny, stinging hail.  We must have run in the pouring rain for about 2 miles before it let up some.  As much as it was cold and wet, we actually were having some fun talking and enjoying the scenery.

The rain stopped for the final 3 miles or so and we finished feeling pretty good at an average pace of under 9:00/mile.  It was a good run!

It is now turning to the month of May and the spring marathon season.  While I am not planning a spring marathon, I am planning on a half marathon in early June and lots of other fun running events in June.  As long as I keep icing my knee and doing my rolling, I hope things continue to look up for my running.  And I hope things are looking up for your running too.

Keep on Running!!!