Rain, rain go away...come again another day!

Oh how the weather can put such a dampener on your motivation, well certainly in my case. Having suffered a cold a couple of weeks ago (man flu on the rampage) which resulted in a poor training week, this week had me setting myself up for an 18 mile long run courtesy of the MK Marathon organised training events.

A gentle build up of mileage during the early part of the week with a good rest from Thursday and an alchohol free Saturday night even though I was out for dinner at friends made for good preparation. All that could stand in my way now was the weather and unfortunately the forecast was not good.

I woke up in good time, got ready and had my pre race breakfast of porridge and a cup of coffee, the coffee being my caffeine boost. I was due to set off at 8:30am for Milton Keynes where the training run was to start. The time now 7:00am and the weather outside was not looking good, it had started to snow. Positive thoughts unfortunately were not the measure of the day and I found myself giving up on the run even though all I needed to do was get in the car and drive. The battle in my mind continued, go, don't go, go, don't go and then just before 8:00am the snow turned to a light drizzle. This was it, my window of opportunity, I could go out and run locally putting in the distance before the weather turned again.

Off I went, the first 3 miles run in a modest drizzle and then the rain started to fall harder which by mile 7 again turned to snow. My plan of action to run via my house which would register 10 miles and then guage whether I should continue. A good plan as at 10 miles the snow which had now turned to rain stopped and I ran for a further 6 miles satisfied with the pace and finishing with a feeling that I had more running in me.

I'm glad to say that as my run ended it did not take long for the weather to change again with more snow followed by heavy rain. The positive being (and I'm sorry for all the runners that went out on the MK Marathon organised training run) if I'd joined them I would have been caught out in the lousy weather still running to finish the 18 miles.

The Oakley 20 is on my calendar, a race to be run this coming Sunday and used to trial my planned marathon pace. God if you can hear me "please let the weather be kind to me!".