Fartleks in the Rain

"You know you're a runner if you can say fartlek with a straight face," we used to joke.  Fartlek means  "speed play" in Swedish, and it is, simply put, a run intermixing fast and slow runner in an unstructured way.  The advantage to running a defined distance in interval training - 400 meters, for example - is that you can compare from week to week and be assured that progress is being made.  In fartlek training, you might run at interval pace from, say, one utility pole to another, or from a mailbox to a tree, entirely on whim and feeling.

It has been a struggle running this week because of the low pressure area that has stalled over our region in the middle of a summer that has already had more than its share of rain.  Tuesday, I was fortunate to be able to find a window of opportunity in the morning just before the downpour began, eventually leaving five inches or more of rain by the end of the day.  Yesterday we had four inches, and today, judging by the rain gauge, it looks like we may reach five again. 

I don't mind running in light rain, and have run both marathons and many shorter races in heavier rain than today.  But speed work goes better on a dry road, and it would also be nice if my two pairs of running shoes which I alternate on each run have a chance to dry.  I say this to convince myself that I am not a wimp.

Today I drove to Town prepared to run another set of 400s and 800s in the middle of a four-mile run, but the rain was just unrelenting.  I sat in the car for awhile looking at the radar app on my phone, but it was solid green and yellow and even orange.  So I decided to drive home, stay dressed in running clothes, and watch the weather.  Sure enough, I realized mid-morning that the rain had almost stopped.  The radar showed patches of blue (light rain).  I did not waste time by driving to Town again, but headed down Sassafras Gap Road, thinking I might be able to at least get in one or two miles of the four miles I had planned before the downpour returned.

The rain was light and cooling, not at all a hindrance, and it had not pooled up very much in the road.  I used to have a mile of 200-meter intervals painted on the edge of the road down here, but a D. O. T. re-surfacing project two years ago covered them up and I have not replaced them.  So it was a perfect morning for fartlek training:  pole to pole, tree to mailbox, fast and slow.  Everything felt smooth and strong this morning, just a little twinge in that troublesome right knee.  Two miles, then three, and finally a fourth mile.  And by then it was starting to come down hard enough that I was ready to stop.

What a good feeling it is, I realized for perhaps the hundredth time in my running life, to have a door of opportunity open just a crack, and to decide to go through it!