Surviving

Admission: I do not handle weekly high mileage very well.  And by high mileage, I mean anything beyond 30 miles in a week.  My body and my mind fatigue very easily.  Having just done 53 days in a row of run streaking, I'm feeling a little burnt out.  There are races on the schedule, though, which means I've got to power through.  This means the current training I am doing is more about surviving than actual training.

Sunday marked my first "official" training run towards my trail marathon and 50K.  There are only a few trails around town and most of them require a 1/2 hour drive or more.  So, although the one closest to my house is probably the shortest of all the trails, I decided to do the run there and not waste time in the car.  Dave had a long ride to do and I needed to be done quickly.

It has pretty much rained the entire summer and Saturday was no exception, which means the trails were kinda messy Sunday morning.  I start my run on a two mile loop on a trail that is not maintained.  Part of the trail is a grassy area which was completely under water yesterday.  Then the other trails had big ruts in them due to rain run off.  There was a lot of quick stepping around on the trail.  Thank goodness for all that jump rope I've been doing.

I'm not gonna lie, this run was hard.  It was humid as balls and I was sweating bullets.  I was soaked before the first two miles ended.  And the bugs.  Oh the bugs!  Every time I stopped to eat a gel or take a bathroom break, I got swarmed and eaten alive.  This is what I looked like today:

I got through it, though and ended up with 13 trail miles and a lovely souvenir from my new hydration pack.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm making the right decision by tackling trail running.  To be honest, I don't exactly love the trails.  I love the roads.  I don't like running the trails alone and I don't have a training partner.  The thought of doing another marathon or longer is daunting to me.  I haven't done a marathon since 2009.  I certainly haven't done one on trails either.  For now, I'm going to keep at it and just see what comes of it.