24 K Barefoot Run in the Rain

I ran 24 K in the rain. I ran in bare feet. I ran my favorite 6 K shuttle course four times with a brief hydration and food break after every 6 K.

1st 6 K: 33:39.13
Food and Hydration Break :34.44
2nd 6 K: 33:32.34
Food and Hydration Break :27.73
3rd 6 K: 35:06.79
Food and Hydration Break :42.57
4th K: 36:12.80
Total 24 K: 2:20:15

I don't mind running in the rain. As long as it's not too cold, of course. Low temperature is demotivating. Today's daytime highs were 20 degrees Celsius. Cool, but not cold. I don't mind running on wet roads in bare feet either. Actually I kind of enjoy it. Every time I splash into a puddle, dirt on my feel gets rinsed off.

I ran very slowly today. I took distance over speed. I hadn't run longer than 20 K for quite a while. I wanted get used longer distances slowly. Otherwise, you could get burned out and wouldn't want to run again for days. That'd hurt consistency.

Over all it was a pleasant run. But around 13 K I felt pain in my right knee.  It often happens around that distance, so I wasn't surprised. It disappeared within one kilometer. It happens a lot during races also. In races, I do not stop. I grit my teeth and bear, and keep on running. But training is not a race. You don't want to get injured by pushing too much. I sometimes walked for half a minute, and then ran again. When I did so, the pain had gone away. But it would come back again after a while. Again I slowed down to walk for a while.

When I was about to finish my fourth lap, I had a choice between calling it a day, or going for another. By then, I felt a bit cold, and hungry also. I decided to finish for the day.

After taking a warm shower, I gave my legs a massage. There was a lump of a decent size behind my right knee at the top end of the calf. I rubbed massage cream on it, and the lump seemed to become less tense.

Another 6 K would have made it a grand 30 K, but I didn't regret that I fell short of the distance. I want to become stronger slowly until the Aqua Line Marathon in October.

I finished the last small piece of sponge cake after the shower. But I was, of course, still very hungry. I took a brief nap on futon till my bilingual companion arrived for a stay. I borrowed her car from Madam Fumiko, and she and I went to the Ikinari Steak restaurant near JR Sakura Station. She had a 300g steak, and I had 450g. We ate till we dropped. We both felt so full that we went to the AEON Shopping Mall to do some window shopping. As I strolling around the mall, I was thinking about how to increase the challenging-ness of my running training.