Battling the elements. Or "Now I know why horses have tails."

We spent this past weekend at the lake, and got some good training miles in on our favorite walking trail, the Southern Links Trailway. 

Saturday, we got up and out a little later than planned, but still got in our 10-mile training walk. We went our "usual" way (starting in Otter Lake, heading south to Columbiaville, then back to Otter Lake and a few miles up toward Millington). It was a fine walk, with lots of sun and happy people.

(I'm not sure if it's an "up north" thing or what, but people are REALLY friendly on this trail! Nearly every person you come across will smile and wave, with a majority saying good morning with a cheery voice.)

Sunday was another story. Instead of heading the usual way, we decided to check out the route to Millington. Won't be doing that again.

We stayed up a bit later than planned on Saturday, so 8 a.m. came really, really early. (I'm pretty sure my contacts barely had the 6-hour cleaning time required.) But we got up, geared up, and went up to the car to leave. Lo and behold, dark rain clouds were looming. So much for the weather forecast from Friday, which showed sunny and dry all weekend.

Stef and her handy dandy poncho.

Fortunately, going back to bed just wasn't an option (after all the effort to gear up, lube up, hydrate, etc., there was no way I wasn't walking). So we headed out and hoped. About two miles in, the rain started. Stef pulled out her spiffy little poncho and walked along quite dry (but noisy). Guess who didn't pull out her poncho? We haven't trained in the rain (I'm dedicated to training, but not enough to be miserable walking in the rain.), so I didn't have a poncho in my pack. We only pulled over once (seriously, I did not want to get soaked), and it didn't really rain all that hard or all that long, so it was a good lesson... pack the pocho. Duh.

The next few miles were a tad warm ... the rain ended within 15 minutes or so, but that brought in the humidity. I felt like I was wading through the air. Yuck.

Then, the bugs attacked.

I'll concede that neither of us showered before we left. But come on. It was nuts. The bugs (flies, sweat bees, gnats) were unbelievable. They were swarming around our heads. Flying into our eyes. Biting. It was horrible. At one point, I looked over at Stef and she had at least 20 bugs around her hair. Ewww.  So we turned around, a quarter mile short of our turnaround point, and headed back. We spent about a mile using our bandannas to swat the bugs away.

Hence the subtitle, which is a quote from Stef: "Now I know why horses have tails."

So, training notes to self:
1) It might rain. Pack a poncho.
2) There may be bugs. Have bandannas.
3) It might be humid. Suck it up

With just over a month to go, the training is more important every day. And I'm learning that it's not just the physical aspect of training ...