Rain at last

It was a real shock when I opened the front door to go for my run this morning when I saw that the ground was wet outside. I'd forgotten what it looked like when the rain is falling, leaving a film of humidity on the path and causing the slate tiles to turn into a treacherous slipway down to the stairs. I'd been prepared to face another early morning of heat and sunshine and had dressed accordingly. As it was, I opened the door, took stock of the situation, turned back inside and grabbed a cap and left for my run.

It's been over 2 months now since we've had any rain in the Paris area and the situation is becoming critical. The water supplies are already dangerously low and summer hasn't arrived yet. Famers are having to kill their livestock as they can't afford to feed them as hay and animal food prices have almost doubled these last few weeks. We tend to forget about the basics of life such as clean water and food as we take them for granted. It's situations such as these that bring back home the fragility of the economy and the importance of natural resources on our lifestyles. I have to admit that my thoughts over the first part of the run were about these issues despite the early hours of the morning.

Well, one aspect of the slight drizzle that was falling was that the temperature had also cooled considerably, falling to around 10°C at 6:00am. It made for very pleasant running and I took it easy down to the Seine and along the river to Maisons Laffitte castle. There was a lot of activity going on in the river as the rainfall seemed to encourage the fish to jump and the ducks and moorhens were having a field day chasing them. I was managing about 4:40 pace and quite happy at this speed, keeping some energy in reserve for the club session this evening when we'll probably return to the track.

I ran through the park and back through the forest to Le Mesnil. Feeling fresh still, I decided to add on a little loop to push the distance over 11 km for my outing and ran down past the church towards the townhall but cutting back left before getting to the bottom of the hill. A great feeling this morning globally but I'm still feeling some stiffness in my right thigh when I run these recovery runs. It doesn't bother me in races or on the track though.

11.3km all up in 52:18 or 4:37 / km average. The drizzle had already stopped by the time I got home and it looks as though this will be the last of the rain for the next week at least. 1mm of rain fell this morning - this will not be enough to resolve any water problems for the moment.