and onto monday, a rainy start...

so the rain that was due at 4pm came in early. having run two days in a row gail rested her plantar/heel and i went out in a reasonably cold rain and dark skies. knowing i was tired decided to go as easy as possible and stay out for awhile and then decide about taking tomorrow off later. even a bad plan is a plan, and this is not one i would force on my runners, but i figured i had enough experience to adjust on the fly and newbies like to do exactly what you tell them despite how they feel and what they didn't tell you about that.

this turned out to be quite the convoluted route and i will try and simplify it or those reading- like anyone but me cares. up binsey lane and over to the rainbow bridge and through port meadow was the start. the usual cows and horses were out in the rain and the trail was pretty muddy, some puddles not easily avoided, especially around the gates where puddles like to form. being a bank holiday today there were more people out than usual at this early hour.

i ran out the port meadow gate and turned left so i could take the long route to university parks and also to see if i could find the little art gallery i had seen last week. did run past the gallery again further away than i remembered and will come back to it later in the week. ran all the way past st margaret's hall and down the road to the back gate for a change. gail and i had used this gate two years ago when we were staying in summertown. summertown is a smaller version of old town back home.

into the park and i did the long loop around the outside taking me past the pond and then cut back and ran the inside trails to add some distance. the flowers were more in bloom than when beth and i had come through here several weeks back now. seems like yesterday. met a few nice people here and stopped for a second at a memorial bench to say hi to marcus sutton. his bench is really recent and the plaque is nice and simple and just says-"he ran here". i tried to google him but came up empty. anyway, i like to think that when i run here i run for him and use his strength on the days like today when i am tired. cannot explain that in a way that makes sense probably.

back in the days when i lived at oakwood in falls church i would run in the cemetery right there at the corner which had 2 good hills and one 1/4 mile circle at the top. and i would always pick out a name on a stone and dedicate that day's run to them. always felt inspirational. only one friend of mine would there with me and that was steve thompson. it wasn't his favorite place to run, but we would turn it into a fartlek workout and that appeased him. should find a place to put a bench in steve's name when i get home. funny how you miss people...

at any rate, as my old billy budd friend used to say, i ran on through university park and eventually out the back gate and down st cross road. plan was to look for gail on her way to the bodleian thinking she would wait for the rain to die down a bit before she walked the two+ miles there.

st. cross road is a neat old road which runs past many colleges, including good old bill clinton's himself. went past "linacre" college where they were building new dorms and then "new" and "balliol" college and of course, "st. cross" college and cut back over to the hollywell st. quad. then past the library and no gail yet. ran down the road and stopped briefly at her favorite coffee shop, but still no gail, so turned and went back to the bank's "hole in the wall" machine, an ATM to we americans.

and then just ran back on the road i knew gail would take and eventually made it all the way home where she still was. and the rain was about stopped now. 8 miles of rain and one of drizzle. an ok outing despite tired legs and quads. what gets one through days like these is the miles already run for strength. hope to build on that, but either way it is nice knowing i can still enjoy being out. need to carry that attitude over to the go course more often, though i think it is easier on the course itself than the driving range. in perspective it should be easy on the range also as you work on stuff there and can expect it to not always go well. Ha ha on me.

some more laundry done and breakfast finished and the sun is sort of out behind the clouds and maybe i will go hit some balls. maybe- but more later on i hope...........