Is Ramon Going Soft? :)

Last night it was POURING when I left work to go to running practice. It was pouring so hard, that in the short time (about 5 minutes) it took me to walk from the subway station to the park I was completely drenched. I'm talking absolutely soaked through, clothes clinging to every bit of fat drenched.

I was hoping that we wouldn't do our hill workout, which consisted of mainly hills on trails for my group.

When I was standing under the bridge by the Bethesda terrace I was talking to Ramon about one of my mentees and saying that she wanted to talk to him but was coming a little later and he asked how much later, because he wasn't sure we were even going to have practice. I passed this onto my running buddies in disbelief and they were like "are you sure?" I mean, Ramon NEVER cancels practice unless there is a huge lightning storm. He says it's good practice. And it's true. I mean, what are you going to do if it is raining on marathon day?

Anyway, our workout did get reduced to a "fun run" of 4, 5 or 6 miles...our choice.

I decided on 6 and Lauren was begrudgingly going to join me, but then we had to wait around in the rain for what seemed like forever for Steve to start our group, so we decided 5 was just fine. When I couldn't find my satellites I was like "Screw it. I'm not even going to time this one." Lauren was like "Yay! Fun run!" While running with Lauren IS fun, I think we both still push each other. So fun turned into fast, but how fast we have no idea since I had turned my Garmin off.

Let's just say fast enough that when we got back to the transverse at 4 miles we were really tired (I also contribute this to lack of sleep from the night before and just overall feeling crappy all day. Plus, I think running in the rain is somehow harder, sort of like how running on sand is harder. Especially when it is pelting you majorly.) We were losers and decided to do 4. We were such losers that we actually had to TURN AROUND to do this.

Oh well.

Did I mention it was raining really hard? At some points I couldn't see where I was going :)
On the plus side, I think the TNT team were really the only people in the park.

AND we all got kudos in Ramon's email to the team today:

"Thing#3

A BIG shout out to all those that showed up to yesterday's super awesome practice !!! You have showed us your committment to training, and THAT' my dearest is what will take you to the finish line.

You have earned the respect of this coach! and at the same time help us realized that we are all a bit crazy !!!!

I just hope those sneakers get dry before saturday's run !! :))"

Maybe he is going soft :)

All I know is I am NOT looking forward to 12 miles at 7am on Saturday. Blah.