Rain, Rain, Go Away...

Come, but stop when we want to run!

It was predicted to rain around Monday, but reports said that it would start later in the evening. Natilie had the day off, but I was going to work with Judith to take advantage of the day of no rain, because if we waited until Tuesday and it was guaranteed rain, we'd be screwed to work.

As happy as I was to wake up to the rain, I was worried about both not being able to work and run. I didn't get a call from Judith, so I figured things were still on, but it was always a gamble since she lives in Santa Monica and I in Northeast LA. It was rain all the way up to Pasadena, but as soon as I got off the freeway, it was clear. It was good day of work, with a little bit of light rain, and I was happy to know that it hadn't rained in my neighborhood since Natilie woke up (around noon).

We were going for sure today. Natilie had a friend who was flying back in from Chicago that day and wanted to hang out with her, but she, like I, was determined to go running that day since we practically didn't the day before, but he still wanted to drop by before he made his way back up to Ventura. So he came along, took a book and sat on a bench as we made our rounds.

It was such a beautiful day. It seemed all the rain in the area happened in the morning, as the trails were almost completely dry. The sky was amazing; looking to the north you can see the ominous dark clouds of rain, and directly above us and to the south directly over the towering buildings of the Financial District were breaks in the fluffy white clouds and the bright blue California sky was peeking through. As we made our first lap, we saw this amazing formation that looked like a baby pegasus on a cloud directly over downtown. It was pretty cool to see. The air was very clear and clean too, and worried that it was going to be very cold, we layered up a bit, because one can always peel away at clothing, and being cold while working out is scary.

MONDAY, 21 JANUARY 2008
LAP 1: 19.57.46
LAP 2: 16.44.57
LAP 3: 16.50.12
TOTAL: 53.32.15

Overall, we did great, in my opinion. Our walk was a smidge faster than usual, maybe because we were cold and we wanted to get the blood running through our veins already, but what I was impressed with were our run/walk laps. Neither she or I felt winded going around, but it seems as though we're getting a bit faster without the fatigue. It could be partially due to the clean air we were running in, but either way, I was very happy with our pace, even though Natilie's friend only saw us walk whenever we passed by.

I was proud of our pace. Chatting makes the time go by a lot quicker, and before we knew it, it was time to run again. The run intervals seemed to go by quicker, too. To ensure we didn't overdo it, I would try to keep a half step behind Nadilie, so neither of us would try subconsciously push each to an uncomfortable pace.

Just to make things easier on myself mentally, I tried to make a point to NOT check my watch every few steps to see that only 10 seconds passed since my last check, and be disappointed the run was still happening. It is hard not to check; two minutes is a very short period of time to run, so it's easy to see if you're in the first or second minute still. Instead, I would look ahead to mark the sport where I would check my watch. I made sure that the spot was a good distance away, because I know we cover a lot of ground, and strangely enough, the spot I designated as the check spot would be just around the time we were done with our sprint. Maybe I'm starting to get a feel of what I'm capable of doing again, as I used to be able to do that before when training for the maratahon, too.

That makes me happy.

What makes me not so happy is the fact that it seems like it's been raining all night tonight, or at least for the good part of the early morning. Natilie doesn't have school today, so she wanted to go running with me after work. I'm not sure if our plans to run will be rained out. I guess that means we got to jump on the bike and play some Wii Boxing...