This weekend I took a break from touring to run at my home parkrun, Riddlesdown. We managed to persuade my mum and brother to come along and look after Matilda, which meant that both I and Mrs7t could run. (we could both run even without the help but I didn't fancy having to clean all of the mud off the running buggy afterwards)
A dry week ended with heavy rain all day on parkruneve and the course held on to most of that water giving us a very wet course to play on on parkrunday.
I had decided beforehand that I wanted to run this as a time trial, so I lined up near the front of the pack and went off hard. The far end of the course was a bit like a mud bath and the tight corner required walking pace in order to negotiate it successfully.
The trail section was pretty tricky too. I lost my footing a few times but nothing too serious. Further into the trail there were some pretty large puddles, tip toeing around them really zapped my energy so I changed my approach and went straight through.
The section leading up to the finish line was waterlogged and on the second lap I felt like I was barely moving as I struggled for traction on the loose ground.
I managed to finish in under 21 minutes, which given the conditions was a fair time. Even though the conditions were not good for running a fast time, Mrs7t managed to run her best parkrun of 2012.
The best decision of the day was the one where I packed a spare pair of socks, as my trail shoes (and everything inside) were completely soaked through. When your feet are wet and cold there is no greater feeling than warm, dry feet.