I wish I could say that this week was great. After all, it’s been quite warm here and I’ve been trying to enjoy the weather as much as possible. But instead, my bad luck won out. Hopefully this means only smooth sailing ahead!

I tried a new running location on Wednesday, the C&O toe path. Well, it’s not exactly new, I can see the toe path from my office window and in 2015 Alyssa and I capped off our DC/Charlottesville/DC epic bike ride with a half marathon on it – which was a painful experience in and of itself. But other than this single event, I’ve never actually gone for a run on the thing. So it tuns out on Wednesday I had a long run, which is very rare and to make the situation even better, it was 80 degrees (in February!). So I finished work and went over to the path for the run in the afternoon. I was pretty excited, ready to give the toe path a second chance. I got all suited up with headphones, water bottle, food…just picturing myself, running along the canal, sun shining, wind in my face, music in my ears, just plain enjoying the day. I got onto the path and started running. And woof! I mean BAD. My legs were screaming, every step was painful, like I had run a marathon the day before. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what I had done and turns out I had basically run a marathon the day before, so I really shouldn’t have been surprised that I was feeling so bad, but I felt cheated. Literally, every time I hit an uneven part of the trail, my legs would protest. Hillary always likes to tell me not to run balls slow, because I LOVE running balls slow, and literally I had to concentrate so hard to keep out of the balls realm. I felt jealousy every time I passed a person walking, because that’s what I wanted, to enjoy the path walking. So needless to say the toe path is not high on the places I would like to visit again. It should only be reserved for pain.

On Saturday, I had another painful experience and this is the second time it’s happened to me this month. I got stuck in the rain  on my bike in 40 degree weather. For those who don’t know, unless you wrap your entire body in a trash bag, you are not staying dry or warm in this. My shoes filled with water, and I lost feeling in my feet around hour 2…only 4 more to go. Every part of my being was telling me to just bail on the workout and head home. BUT, as I experienced this same situation two weeks ago, cutting the bike ride short does not mean the end of pain, it usually involves a second bike ride inside that will be twice as hard. So I was weighing the unpleasantness of the situation against this possible second ride and I decided that unless I feared dying, I was staying on the bike. Because to be honest, I have been in worse situations, just usually not this close to home. I did get a little nervous that I was going to lose feeling in my feet forever and at one point I sought refuge in a port-a-potty so I could eat some food and get the blood flowing again (that actually IS a first). But I made it, no second bike ride needed, and my face and hands only a bit chapped.

So, lets just say, I’ll be inside today, running on the treadmill, no weather to deal with and no brand new running routes…just nice and boring the way I like it.