Bastrop State Park in the rain

Kerry and I drove out and arrived at Bastrop State Park this morning at 7am. There was menacing making it's way to Austin from the East, so we figured we'd have a good hour to hour and a half before it hit Bastrop (if it even reached us).
We had 2 loops planned, each loop being 8.5 miles.

The trails in bastrop are beautiful, nothing too hilly, and generally a soft pine needle/soft sand base trail meanders through beatufitul giant pine trees and green ferns.


I brought Karma along and let himi run leash free (shhh, don't tell them). He got pretty darn lazy on us, but hey, it was fun having him out there with us for the first loop. There really aren't many trails out there, so no chance for him to get lost. At one point, we probably had a 300 foot lead on him, and he never showed up. But, eventually, as is the norm, he showed up winded as can be. Maybe he spotted something and took off on a giant sprint while we weren't looking. Who knows.
It was humid out, and it really wore on the kid, so when he came up on this mud pond, he didn't even hesitate, and before we could stop him, he was in the middle of it, walking/swimming straight across it to cool off. Too funny. All you could see was a little of his upper back, his head, and his tail. A perfect crocodile in the muddy Zambese river.
I just kept picturing the amount of mud water i'd have to figure out how to remove off of him before our 45 minute drive home. But then, the rain came. Holy cow did it start raining. We're talking torrential downpour and within not even a minute, all three of us were completely drenched. Eventually, we took a wrong turn and added about a mile and a half. In normal conditions, I think we would have stopped quite quickly, but in the downpour, we all picked up the pace and were just having plain fun as the only people in the park, running in the rain, through flowing waters and giant puddles. The rain continued and created mini rivers on the trails. It was quite the adventure, and one of those you're glad you got to enjoy at least once, as now, everytime we ever go back, we'll be able to remember the blast we had running in the rain!

We finally found our way home and decided to call it a day after about 10 miles, as we were soaked and were getting quite cold.

I end my week at 49 miles, 6 short of what I wanted, but that's ok. I hand't taken a recovery week in a while, so we'll just call it just that. Next week is a 30km (18.6 miles) trail race, so my mileage will be up close to 60, I think.