On drizzle and glasses

'3.5m run' said my training programme for last Thursday. So 3.5m it was, even though it was dark, cold and relentlessly drizzly. Which is OK except for the fact that I wear specs. And as all spectacle wearers know, drizzle is the mortal enemy. You end up dazzled, with your fingers going like greasy windscreen wipers while you lurch all over the place trying not to fall down potholes, or bump into trees, cars, buses, tractors or pedestrians. I've learned that, when you're trying to pick your way along, just aim your feet at the lighter bits, because the darker bits are puddles and holes - or holes that are puddles if you see what I mean.

Anyway I ran my 3.62 miles (I couldn't see where halfway was on my Garmin so I carried on a bit) all the while cursing training programmes all of which seem to be written for the flatlands of sunny California, not Macclesfield on a foul January night. I'm 'training' (a term hard to reconcile with a soggy stagger round Macc!) for the Lakeland trails series, of which Hawkeshead is the first, on the 28th April. My programme is a half marathon plan for intermediate runners and is the usual mix of steady runs, tempo runs and the dreaded intervals. I try and do as much as possible on the fells, but sometimes it just has to be on the roads - like last Thursday.

I got back, after about 32 minutes soggy splosh and, as usual after a run, had a smile on my face. I'd done it. I'd gone out when I could so easily have not. And I'd defied the drizzle.

Smile rating for this run: 6/10