Nice taste of Spring.

Warm temperatures early in the week gradually, relentlessly led to a nearly snowfree landscape around here, and the rain of the past few days have finished off any remaining snowplow piles. The dirt roads are washboard muddiness, and the trail around Kensington is 100% clear for the first time in months. YAY!

A sore throat from ten days ago evolved into a full blown head cold by Monday and training has been tough as a result, but all scheduled runs have been accomplished. Yesterday, rather than the usual continuous long run, I elected to split it up by doing the complete Kensington loop in light drizzle, then drive to Flushing for their Shillelagh 4 miler race. It was only light rain at the start of the race, but soon became a more serious steadiness, but it was great to feel the competitive juices for the first time in quite a while, albeit with rather fatigued legs. I finished only sixth in my age group, but at least three of the guys that beat me are also going to Boston. MY rainful experience paled in comparison to the downpour Annie and Brian ran through in DC in a four mile race there yesterday. Gutsy run, guys!

Cross"training" on Friday's day off involved stairmaster climbing with Zach and dealing with a "critter call" from Sandy Davies. It all started out when she called during dinner in some distress with the dogs going crazy out by the fence when she let them out. Without a husband, she was attempting to resolve a Stuck Animal issue. Chris, Liz and I headed over with headlamps (running accessories can crosstrain too), gloves and shovels to save the day. Picture Chris in her "reading in dark" glasses with the sideframe mounted reading lights and Sandy with her hefty flashlight and we were quite the vision of a team of animal control patrol. Hi Beams of the Equinox were also used to turn night into day out by their back fence by the gazebo. Well, it turned out that what we decided must be a cute muskrat, in his/her haste to escape the dogs, most probably, had nearly, but tragically NOT Quite Completely, made it's way through their chain link fence. It was now very well stuck with dual citizenship of the bordering territories, his rear legs, ass end and long, skinny tail residing in Daviesland, its head and front legs in Frontierland. There was some collective feeling that the very apparent needle teeth on the neighboring property were to be respected. Increased concern was voiced in this regard as Chris bravely applied some manual pressure to the pooper end of the beast as his head twisted around trying to bite her. I made a second try at forward movement by goosing him with the shovel, but this also failed to "gain traction" as they say. Applying a half an animal's worth of vaseline so close to those needle teeth was quickly discarded as an option, leading me to decide that since "extraction" was supposed to be part of my skill set, that it was just time to go for it.
So with my gloves firmly gripping the tail and with significant tugging at various angles.........out pops the little goober and in a beautiful fluid arching trajectory one relatively whole and totally traumatized muskrat landed plop on the other side of the fence. Mission accomplished! Regrettably, no pictures for posting.

As is so often the case, you just never know what life's going to bring.

Weekly running summary

Mon 4 miles 10:00 pace HR 140
Tues 6 miles 8:38 pace forgot the monitor
Wed 5 miles 8:49 pace HR 150
Thurs 5 miles 8:48 pace HR 148
Sat 9 miles 8:31 pace HR 156 caffeinated
1 mile untimed
4 miles 7:40 pace HR 157 caffeinated
Sun 6 miles 8:51 pace no monitor caffeinated