First Saturday in February-Mud on those Trails

Week 1-February, the California is caught in the el nino weather pattern bringing the continued much needed rain and snow in the Sierras. SoCal is getting soaked as well with mudslides in many burn areas. That said it seems the weather likes to arrive with its higher rain totals towards the end of the week and those scheduled long runs...Perhaps I need to move these to the midweek so I can run on less muddy trails!!!!

The week of business travel and cancelled weekend in LA left me with lower quality miles. Having Western States on the horizon leaves me each day with a sense of urgency to be prepared and do my part. The date is in stone and my goal is to make each day count. Business travel involves endless time in airports, meeting with clients and listening, endless opportunities to miss a workout by following group dynamics with endless drinks and dinners. I was grateful to make time early and late in the evening to get something in....

Altered plans led me back in nocal on Saturday. It was rather dark and pounding rain as I woke early to meet some folks in Cool. I knew that it would be hard out on the trail but the run had to go on as scheduled. Once at Cool I was greeted by Kate and Rob Evens...they where helping Fleet Feet Roseville with some ultra training group. This brought a ton of folks to the trailhead on a wet and soggy day....My group arrived shortly after including my coach and off we went on the trail..The pace was great as we headed to Browns Bar. I dropped back about 30 seconds as we started our climb. My legs this week felt ok and pace a bit faster. On the way to Alt we began to see different packs of runners heading back towards Cool. Lots of newbies, many other friends as well all on the trails...I looked forward to when the trail would be quite once more...

The overall trail conditions where very muddy, slick, and streams moving fast. I was moving faster but the hips where getting tight as the day wore on..Goat Hill to HWY 49 was hard on me..it has gotten rutted so that it slows me down when I get tight...I did finish the day 11minutes faster than last week so that was good. A short run Sunday has me back on schedule for training.

Thinking of next weekend already...but first need to have a solid work week of training...be it in the rain again...