Today was long.
For the past week I’ve been hoping that there would be no rain at all. That was dashed on Wednesday. Since then it has been warm, but I could see puddles still lingering about.
Why do I care about the precipitation level?
The Baker’s Dozen relay race was today. Twelve hours to do thirteen laps. Each lap was 7.6km over rough terrain going through thin trails that expect mountain bikes. I had a team of six people, so I had to run the route twice. Thankfully I got out of being the one to run it three times. With my shoulder acting up I don’t think I would have been able to.
The course was fairly dry. Every so often there was a nasty puddle that would require one of three options to get past. I could leap it. I could try and gingerly step around it. Or I could maintain speed and try and twinkletoes along a nearby wall. On the first lap, I made a mistake and got a wet shoe. I changed my socks, and for the second loop I kept dry.
Actually the wet helped. At times it made the hills slightly tacky so I could get a better grip. And some of those hills could almost be considered walls.
Overall, we finished in last place. My team was made at the last minute of people who had been in the trail running clinic and weren’t in a team yet. I believe I was the fastest runner on my team, but I did take the race a little too seriously. For me, in a race, every second is crucial, so when the finish line is in sight I run hell for leather. We have to touch a table to indicate our arrival, and I did that. I just sort of expected that when I’m yelling “Incoming!” people will get out of the way. In her defense, she did move to the end of the table and probably thought she was out of the way. But my first goal was touching the table, with braking as a secondary objective, not the other way around.
Oops.
The day consisted of a lot of waiting around. It was about four hours between my two runs. But you also want to support the person currently doing the run. So I was outside all day, in the hot sun. I’ve got a nice tan/burn now.
I should try and be productive now. I could go out and see a fringe play. Or I could go to the bar. The latter would be easy because I won’t be running tomorrow morning so I can sleep in. But the fact of the matter is that I am really tired right now. I could put a DVD in the machine and just let my brain ooze away.