You’re not! Are you?
Since switching over to trail running (from running on the road (or at least next to it)) I’ve been doing the majority of my running in the afternoon – because, it’s dark at stupid o’clock and quite frankly I scare myself enough during daylight hours, I can’t imagine how I’d cope out in the forest, alone, in the dark …
Well actually I can .. hence the reason I run in the afternoon. 😉
During the week that means I will get changed at work and head straight to the trails before heading home and for the past month not a (run) day goes by where someone won’t say “you’re not going out running in THIS are you?” one even went onto tell me “you’d just be stupid to run in THIS weather”.
I asked him what he’d do if there was an emergency and he had to run outside and it was raining .. would he just stop and say “Oh, sorry I can’t go out there it’s raining, I can’t possibly run in the rain!” I guess I don’t understand what the fuss is all about. It’s winter, it rains in winter and what’s more? It gets cold too ..
In all honesty I’m enjoying running through winter, what’s a bit of mud and swollen river banks between friends. James came out with me on Saturday morning and we ran through Goldies Bush and out onto the Te Henga Trail. During our return he turned to me and said “I’m so proud of you, you’ve really hardened up since you’ve started trail running.” Which I guess I have!
I used to despise running in the rain (although I would begrudgingly do it anyway when I was training towards my first half marathon) but now I don’t even bat an eyelid. I also used to hate having wet feet and now it’s just what happens when you run during winter. Even if you don’t have to traverse a water crossing, you’ll invariably run through mud, wet grass or if particularly unlucky – frost! One way or another, you’re bound to end up with wet feet, someone said “just get used to it” and I have .. (I don’t love it, but I don’t go out of my way to try and stay dry).
The funniest part is – usually when someone exclaims how stupid I am for “running in this” by the time I get to the trail the rain has stopped and I end up having a great run, in fact the only time I’ve ever had to call off a run was the day I left work (with the sun beaming down) to then turn up at Long Bay to be greeted by a hail storm.
Moral of the story? Always get changed and turn up, you can always decide it’s too dodgy once you get there, but at least you’ll have made an honest attempt.
Till next time
