Dry long run

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Finally!! The timing worked out and I got to finish a workout without getting rained on. This was my long weekend - long ride, long run. Yesterday we gotpoured on. Today, I headed up to Rampart Resevoir for my long run. Left later then I wanted, naturally. I was actually helping with registration for a trail race in Stratton. Soon as the men started, I bolted up north. There were clouds all over in Colorado Springs and I was really worried that I would get rained on again. But up at Rampart it was just perfect. A little cool at the start, but no clouds. The sun was shining and it looked like it would warm up pretty quickly. I was planning on running around the res twice for about 26 miles. Based on that plan, I had one water bottle, with a second in the car. I would refill when I started my second lap. It was so quiet up there, especially for a Sunday. I only saw five cyclists and three hikers. I guess everyone thought that it was gonna rain! So I almost had the trail to myself. I was able to settle into a relaxed pace for the first lap. I forgot how rolling Rampart was - it was really good practice for maintaining speed and momentum on the hills and to recover without slowing down. That was hard. I'm pretty bad about really easing off the pace both on and after the hills. About halfway through the first lap, I decided that I didn't feel like running across the dam. I didn't need to run that far today. So I turned around at the dam. The only problem with that plan was that I would not get my second waterbottle. I didn't think that would be too much of an issue. I also decided to try to negative split the run. I was hitting a good pace and felt really comfortable with the miles. But it was starting to really warm up. Not a problem - I need the heat training for Long Course. But I was also running low on water. I knew that I would run out before the end of the run. And clouds looked like they were trying to build. I almost managed to get the negative split - even splits without really having enought water is good. Minutes after I got back to car, it started to rain. Not heavy at first, then the downpour started. If I had actually done the whole workout, I would have gotten soaked, again. That made up for running out of water and it was a great workout.

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