Winter has arrived in South Dakota. In October. Early October. Not much snow, but windchills in the teens and single digits. I am not ready for this crap. I mean, seriously, I went from running in shorts and a t-shirt to all out layered cold weather gear in the span of a couple of days. I need a transition period, damn it!
Anyhow, this past week was pretty much more of the same, with another trail race thrown in:
Monday - No running, played basketball.
Tuesday - 7 miles
Wednesday - 10 miles
Thursday - 6 miles in the morning, 5 in the afternoon. My first double since Boston training in the spring, I believe. The second run felt light years better than the first.
Friday - 6 miles
Saturday - 7.3 miles total including the 10-10-10K trail race at Buzzard's Roost, outside of Rapid City. It was cold. Really frickin cold, to be exact. I heard it was in the teens when the race started, and I wouldn't doubt that. There was some snow on the trail, but not very much, mostly just a dusting. What made things interesting, besides the technical, hilly trail, was the fact that the snow was melting in the areas that were in the sun, creating an nice, slick muddy trail surface in some sections of trail where one slip would send you tumbling over a significant drop-off. I basically started this race in the same position I finished it....I literally pass one guy the entire way (in the first half mile) and got passed by one guy (again, in the first half mile). After that, the lead pack took off way ahead of me and everyone else fell back a ways behind me and I was just out in the woods all by myself on what seemed like a normal everyday trail run. Every once in awhile I would catch a glimpse of someone behind me, but they never drew very close and I ended up finishing 8th overall and 5th in my division. That was good enough to keep me in first place in the men's under-40 division of the trail series with one race left to go (on Nov. 7th). And, I won a new watch in the prize drawing. Not a bad day overall. A cold one, but not a bad one.
Sunday - 14 miles. Saturday had been cold, but calm. Sunday was cold and windy. It sucked. Plus my legs were tired from the race. Not the most enjoyable 14 miles I've ever run, but I got it done.
Total - 53.7 miles
Rumor has it fall is going to come back later this week. I can only hope.
Hey, it was another perfect football weekend! Belle beat Douglas 45-20, Montana beat Cal Poly 35-23 and Seattle beat Jacksonville 41-0 (they've now won two games by a combined score of 69-0....too bad there were 3 losses between those two wins). And, my fantasy team won too (and is now 5-0). Football is really the only thing that makes the onset of winter bearable.
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