What rain does to your brain

Today on the schedule was another DART run -- a 1.3 mile run into town, 6.3 mile run, and 1.3 miles back home for a total of 9. But at 5:45 when I walked out the door it was absolutely pouring. I decided to drive into town.

I got there to find Chad sitting in his car, hoping no one would show up to meet him. Fortunately at this point the rain had slowed to a light mist. We headed out into the darkness, our headlamps illuminating the misty raindrops as they alighted on our faces. I was worn out after the fast pace I had run yesterday, and Chad was still on the slow road to recovery from a stress fracture, so we went a little slower today.

As I ran, tiny droplets of water began to accumulate on my glasses. It became progressively more difficult to see. Chad was wearing contacts and was having a much easier time of it, so I basically tried to stay next to him and hope he didn't lead me into a ditch. I sloshed through a lot of puddles, but managed to avoid a major fall. The first two miles were about the same as yesterday: 7:50, 7:56. But mile 3, which I had cranked out in 7:14 yesterday, was just a 7:50. Then we started to slow down: 8:07 on mile 4, 8:29 on mile 5. We were now running along Concord Road, where a steady stream of car traffic was headed out of town, the glare from their headlights penetrating our eyes. My glasses were now solidly covered with water droplets, and every time a car passed, the droplets glowed so brightly they nearly blinded me. I was completely soaked, so I had nothing to dry off the glasses with. Finally I just decided to take them off. Amazingly, I could see much better (my vision is horrifically bad)! Although everything was a bit blurry, at least I could see things like the curb, potholes, and trash cans in the sidewalk (today was trash pickup day). Still, mile 6 was 8:45. We were pooped, and soaked.

I was so distracted by the rain that I forgot to turn off my GPS trainer at the end of the run. Chad and I had a cup of coffee at Summit, then I drove home -- while my Garmin recorded it. It makes for a very odd pace chart:

I can't decide whether to keep this record of my silly error, or delete it since it doesn't accurately reflect my workout. In fact it only adds 1.3 miles that I didn't really run.

Garmin