First run successful

two days after my attempted run through UCSD's eucalyptus forest trails and I'm in pain. My lower back, calves and glutes are all experiencing this dull ache... I believe it's called "being sore". It's been so long that I don't recall if this is how it's supposed to feel. Maybe I'm injured? No... I think it's "soreness".

Let me recount Tuesdays's run as it's pretty amusing to look back onto:

My inital plan was to run for 30 minutes (along with a 10 minute warm up walk), head over to the climbing gym, climb lightly on jugs for an hour and then head home. To make sure I had plenty of time to go to the climbing gym and run errands afterwards, I left work an hour early.

The SECOND I stepped outside, it started raining. It gradually picked up its intensity during my 5 minute walk to my car. Mind you, an hour previous my co-workers and I were commenting on how beautiful everything was - blue skies, green grass... the works. Now, it's gray, and wet things are fallling on my head.

I drive to the other side of campus, closer to the forest. I quickly change into my running clothes in my car while noting that the rain has stopped. "Maybe it's a bad omen? Oh well - it's stopped so it should be good" . Right.

I do the 10 minute walk and warm up my muscles. I patted myself on the back because by the time I walk to the forest from my car, it's exactly 10 minutes and I start to pick up the pace... where upon the rain picks up its pace as well. Yup - it rained. harder.

I briefly considered turning around but thought "no no no - it's too easy to say 'I'll run tomorrow instead'" and kept going on the dirt path. Scratch that: mud path. "Hmm... mud... never ran in mud before. Never done it, don't have an opinion on it - let's keep going". The path was flat anyway so it shouldn't be too bad.

The forest clears away and is replaced with an open sky canyon 10 minutes later and the trail curves to the right and slightly down. 5 steps in, I started sliding down the mud on my feet as if I were glissading. "Too hard to turn around now... I'll just keep going". a minute later, I start wondering if I'm running down a trail or a wash when I see short wooden bridges / planks across gaps in the trail. Figured these were here on purpose for the trail, I kept going.

When I turned a corner, I saw one of the steeper hills I've seen at UCSD - probably in San Diego. And it's slick with mud. Somehow I managed *run* up this thing without falling on my butt - I leapt from one relatively flat spot to another as my shoes accumulated mud and progressively lost their traction. "Must... keep... momentum... " is what I kept telling myself.

Fortunately, I ended up on flatter ground and walked for a while. At this point, I'm drenched. In cotton clothes. hundreds of dollars in quick drying synthetic shirts and I had to pick a cotton one for a rainy day. I'm cold, but I don't realize it yet. I stop to pee at a bush. I do it in wilderness areas - might as well do it on campus.

I finish the run with another 10 minutes of bushwacking till I find a bigger trail that the one I'm on meets up with. I find a giant sign that read "2 miles" and wonder how you do 2 miles in this forest.

I start heading back to the start of the trail (I've regained my sense of direction and distance at this point) and I'm forced to stop my run in order to ford multiple rivers. I didn't think this trail could get any more interesting. In 20 minutes, I was looking at 3 parallel rivers of water run off from the concrete-and-cement campus a 100 yards to my right. The water wasn't deep (maybe 2 or 3") but would definitely get my feet wetter than they were. And heavier with water logging. I just saw this as another intersting obstacle and leaped from one relatively dry spot to another Frogger style.

By the time I arrived at teh climbing gym I was soaked, dripping water, cold and muddy. I should have just rolled around on the dusty, chalky rocks to dry myself off (I instead used paper towels from the bathroom and took my shirt off to climb that night).

Day two is today. no rains in sight. I'm going to attempt the forest and climbing again... hopefully, it'll be less adventurous than last time.