Horse Poo, Rain & Soggy Jelly Babies

It's been an interesting week following Brands Hatch. On the Monday I finally got round to seeing a physio about my knee and back. I've been concerned about my right knee for a while. It doesn't bother me whilst running but it's really painful to kneel on. I wanted to get it seen to before it started impacting on my running. I'll spare you the details but it's all treatable (including my back). The only thing is, one of the many exercises she wants me to do is to run backwards for 10 minutes twice a day - as if people didn't think I was crazy enough already! I tried it out before club night on the roads around Willett's Rec. I had to run in the middle of the road as it's too dangerous trying to run backwards on the pavement. There are too many trees, posts, lumps and bumps to trip over or bump into. Obviously you have to look out for cars when you're in the middle of the road and many of them on Tuesday had fellow club runners in arriving to training. I was a laughing stock. I tried to explain this to the physio yesterday at my second appointment in the hope that she would give me an alternative exercise but I've been told to go to the park when it's quiet and do lengths on the grass. On top of this humiliation she wants me to shave my leg for next week so she can strap it.
I saw a guy running this week with a hydration pack and he had the pipe coming up under his arm so it was pointing up on his chest. I'd always had mine coming over my shoulder so the pipe ended up pointing down. I've experimented threading the tube through different ways and I've come up with a way that means I can now drink on the run. I have to stop for a second to put the pipe in my mouth but I can then carry on running whilst sipping from it. When I'm done it pings back into place (almost). It needs further practise.
I was going to run this week after I'd volunteered at Bromley Parkrun on Saturday. I had everything in the car but it was really humid and oppressive. Watching some of the runners cross the line, grumbling about the heaviness of the air I decided not to bother and to go on Sunday instead after it had rained. The only trouble with that idea was that I was meeting friends in the pub Saturday night to watch England v Russia in the Euros. I managed to only drink three pints so I was pretty fresh when I got up to volunteer at Junior Parkrun this morning.
Once Junior Parkrun had cleared I got ready for my run. I managed to do the first lap in the dry but by mile 2 it was raining and it continued to rain for the next 12 miles - sometimes very hard! To begin with I tried avoiding the wetter bits of tarmac but it soon became very wet everywhere with many puddles to contend with. This makes it harder to dribble as you have to put more effort into bouncing the ball to make it come back to a suitable height. The water takes a lot of the sting out of each bounce. This is probably why my left shoulder began to ache a little. It's fine now though. I also had a trail of horse poo to contend with each lap. It went right across the path so I had to time the bounces well but it's all good experience. The rain also made all my Jelly Babies go soggy!
The increasingly difficult conditions meant that I did lose control once and had a couple of other wobbles but I still managed to do 13.52 miles in 02:00:58 which is 08:57 minutes per mile. I'm very happy with that as it was raining really hard at times. I now know that I can deal with it if it rains in April and that I'd much rather it did than have glorious sunshine. I don't cope with the heat well.
Now back to the real world. I have to take my daughter out to buy new school shoes.

I got very wet today