When it rains

I woke up to rain today and with some new found freedom and flexibility with my job I decided to skip out on work. Working in the rain blows. It makes wrestling with plant material really unappealing, because the all the dirt and debris sticks to me and drives me nuts. I don't know, I think I have some sensory issues when it comes to dirt. I don't like the feel of dirt on my skin, especially my hands. It's really kind of strange that I choose to work with dirty things and run in the woods but I have no objections to being dirty, I just don't like the feel of it. I've learned to deal with it over the years by always wearing gloves at work and desensitizing myself otherwise. Although, like I said before, I chose not to deal with it today.

So, what did I choose to do on this rainy day? I went to Rock Cut state park to run a loop of the Hobo 50k course. It only seemed natural to me to go and run there because this whole summer every time I've run at Rock Cut it rains. I've begun to see it as something almost pleasant.

The trails at Rock Cut are some of the most runnable single track trails I've ever encountered in Northern IL. They are smooth, shaded, beautiful, and plentiful. I only have a few complaints when running there. The trail markings are horrendous! There are trail maps posted in many places in the park, the problem is that the trail markings don't correspond to anything on the map. They are lettered and numbered in some odd way, which might mean something to a park ranger maybe but when a someone (like me) is lost on the trail and looking for where they are on the map and there is no such thing as trail C 24 to be found on that map, it's a major pain in the ass. Luckily, the race director has marked the course already. So I've run the entire course a few times now. Today at about 13 miles I was zoning out just trying to get the rest of the run done when all the sudden I realized that I had never been on that particular trail before. Indeed, they all start to look the same after awhile but this trail was paved, but very overgrown, like no one had been on it in a long time. After running a bit I came to my senses and realized that some douche had messed with the markings and ran back to where I knew the course was supposed to go. Getting lost on the trails in training runs and sometimes races, is something that is expected with trail running. It's annoying, but expected. I'm glad that I've run the course now so many times so that on race day I can sail through intersections where I know that newbies will have to stop and make educated guesses on where the actual course goes.

Today's stats:
Miles run - 15.25 on trails
work - none
Weather - 77 overcast with a few showers