Three miles shy of a marathon!

This morning I woke up to the sound of rain outside; I have always dreaded the day I would have to run in the rain. So far I've been lucky to have had perfect weather all summer. But not today. Once I got moving out on my bike to go to the starting point with my hoodie on, it wasn't that bad but there was a definite damp chill in the air. In April, 60 degrees would have felt like a heat wave. The picture on the left was taken on my way up to Foster...note that there is NO ONE on the path. It was one of those Sunday morning that normal people just stayed in bed. For those locally, 23 miles is about the same distance as going from Foster to 31st Street Beach (on the Southside) and back.

There was a pretty strong wind, but it wasn't dehabilitating. The rain wasn't too hard that it felt like it was piercing the skin, but it was constant numbingness most of the 4 hr and 43 minutes that we were running. After a while, my hands were just beat cold and wrinkled like I've been soaking in a tub. Mind you, we are running in shorts and t-shirts, so there wasn't much protection, but the temperature elsewhere (like the body) was pretty comfortable. Half of the distance we run on are along gravel paths just for runners. The mixture of water and gravel equals a grey mucky and splashable obstacle course that was just begging for a twisted foot from dodging the deeper puddles. By the end, my feet were so squishy and wet, I really didn't care and my legs were covered in this grey caked on mud. Now that I finished, I can say that the run actually was pretty painless, but there were many times when I was wondering "what the hell am I doing here?"

So there you have it. Now I can truly believe that I am going to be able to do the marathon. The organizers said we could do it. And sure enough all we have left to look for is the fabled "wall" where the body supposedly breaks down after 23 miles. For the mean time, I think I will just concentrate on those short runs for a couple more weeks and be glad that I am not too sore or injured. Picture above and to the right was taken just before we started our run. You could hear the waves from blocks away.