The wet

It wasn’t the wettest conditions I have ever run in. That came in the Phoenix Park one summer a number of years ago.

I was doing at least two loops one July Saturday when the most torrential tropical-like downpour you could imagine began only a few kilometres into the run. There was spot flooding throughout the capital and within the park and along with the exits and entrances that began to snarl up as others became flooded I remember at least one car, that had blown its engine when its driver failed to slow down as it ploughed into a small lake on the Blackhorse Avenue side of the park. However, that wasn’t the stand-out memory from the run. That would have to be the huge beech tree that came down under its own weight and because its roots that spread shallow and outwards (for tree) couldn’t anchor it so wet the soil had become. It was standing on my first loop and lay prone with roots extending upwards on my second. And still the rain pelted down.

Yesterday it felt as warm as it did all those years ago but the rain was not as dramatic. However, because myself and Tom were planning over 16 kilometres we knew that by the end of our outing we’d be soaked. And with my technical t-shirt stuck to me when I came home and my runners crying out for a fireside and some old newspaper to be stuck inside it, we were right.

Still, it was a lovely 18 k. First, because for me the recovery continues as this extends out my longest distance run thus far since the injury and secondly because having come in I felt as fresh and light-legged had I ran for 5 k. I put this down to the fact that we choose to do three Braveheart (5k) loops of the Fields, which being on a grass track and being on a grass track in nice damp conditions meant that I was running on as soft a material as I could wish for.

Maybe this offers a way forward for the long runs.

Yesterday’s training

18k in around 1 hr 30 mins.