Start time: 6/7/03, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Activity: Running
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 3:1
Average pace: 14:00min/mile

Well, with week four, it’s hard to believe it’s been a month since Julie and I took the plunge again. It’s also hard to believe it’s almost summer with all this rain we’ve been getting in DC. Argh! One big ray of sunshine, though, came in the form of donations from my parents, Felicity Kusinitz, and Trina Short. Thank you all so much!

This weather is more than just annoying, I might add—it makes running really dreary and distinctly not fun. I ended up skipping one of my weekday runs entirely, doing the second one on Thursday when the sun decided to come out and taunt us. When the sun was still hanging around on Friday I thought that maybe… just maybe… nope. Saturday morning brought us rain, rain, and more rain.

I have to say that today’s training run was probably one of the five most miserable ones I’ve ever experienced. We’ve had some scorching hot runs (although I missed the infamous run of death last summer… oh darn) but this was a completely different kind of yuck. Despite having a baseball cap on my glasses were covered with water so I could barely see, my waterproof jacket had clearly overloaded and was clinging to me in a not at all pleasant way, and all I could think about was how wonderful it must be to wear dry clothing. I don’t know if it was the weather or just being tired, but I was dragging all through the second half to boot; nothing was hurting, just a general desire to find a nice warm bed and curl up for a little nap.

When we had about a quarter mile left to go, Julie started cracking up and pointed at the front of my legs. Apparently the rinse cycle of my laundry machine left trace amounts of soap in my shorts, and after almost two hours of pounding rain, they’d started to foam up and then drip the soap all down my legs. We decided that I was so eager to go home and take a shower that I’d already started to lather up. (Of course, then we noticed that Julie’s new shorts had dripped black ink down into her socks, so turnabout is fair play.)

Here’s hoping for a slightly dryer next Saturday!