Weather - 42 degrees, windy, cloudy, hard rain a fallin. Whew, it is sessions like todays which will surface in my mind as I am running the next race, reminding me that I worked hard and am deserving of improvement. I am not very good in cold weather, and although 42 degrees is not all that bad, for me to put on shorts and a light rain jacket took some doing. When I got out the door the rain pelted me, and I was running a little faster than usual so that I could get warm quickly. I was not sure what kind of workout I was going to do, but when I got to Busey Woods I felt surprisingly good, so I decided to cross over into the country club and run fartlek around the 6 perimeter holes. I ran the fairways hard, sloshing through the wet grass, shoes soaked, well, by that time everything was bedraggled, and I would recover from the tee box until the next fairway began, which is about a 30-60 second recovery. I handled all six fairways in control, it was four par 4's, and two par 5's, for a total of about 1600 yards. I then ran through the woods to cool down a bit, for a total of 5 miles. When I finished the rain had lessened a bit, so I decided to do my normal routine of stretching and strength exercises. About half way through it started to pour, and so I finished as quickly as I could, and then walked 40 minutes home - feeling cold, thoroughly wet, and looking forward to a very hot bath. | 