Running With Jack

It was raining when I got home last night and I was anxious to get my run in. Unfortunately we have been having problems with our DSL so I had promised my wife that I wait long enough for her to call the German Telekom when she got home. I have no patience for such things, and even less in the German language, but my wife knows nothing about the DSL settings so I stuck.

I suited up for my run as my wife went through the array of recorded messages before she finally reached a real human on the phone. Luckily it was the same one she talked to in December when our DSL router failed, so she was able to avoid the 101 questions that they insist on putting you though before you talk about the real problem. To make a long story short the technician said our telephone line was fine, it was probably the router again - they'll send us a new one. This was the answer that I expected, so after complaining and being chastised by my wife for my impatience, I tied my running shoes and headed out into the rain.

I had planned on running about two hours, but I was already about 40 minutes late and needed to read some material for work later on, so headed out on my 14 km (8.7 mi) loop. There was a steady drizzling rain that soon had me soaked, but it was a warm 28°C (83°F) so I was comfortable in shorts and running shirt.

My run began rather sluggish, around 6:00/km (9:39/mi) but I gradually increased this, in steps, to around a 5:15/km (8:30/mi). I finally returned to the house looking like a wet cat and took a hot shower. After some hot food and conversation with my wife I went upstairs to get my reading out of the way.

If you notice my sidebar you will see that I have a marathon on the schedule for August 24th. As I have been really busy at work lately I have been seriously considering skipping the race, but my wife has a school friend that lives close by the race, so said I should run the race so she can visit her friend. So after letting her twist my arm, I broke down and signed up for my 7th marathon this year ;-)