It's all about shoes.

Well, notwithstanding the pain yesterday, I really wanted to give the barefoot shoes another go. They feel like they are doing something, even though I'm running slower. So I came up with a plan, which was this: in search of some better grass (no, not that sort: you can't improve on the Granville Street odour) I planned to cycle to the rowing lake, with the barefoot shoes, and run around it. If, as seemed probable, my calf muscles hurt during the run, I would walk instead. That seemed fair. Also, I've heard it said that walking in bare foot shoes is also very good for your muscle development. Shame they look so odd (as if I'd care).

Anyway, this seemed to work pretty well. I set off, and as before, found that the flat, well-cared-for grass was easy underfoot. The odd pile of debris clearly from the rowing lake overtopping its banks seemed to be soft, and mainly comprised of the wood chip they recently piled around some newly planted willows on the other side. It was pretty slippy, and I hoped desperately that the slips were occuring because of actual mud, and not (as I suspect more likely) from piles of bird crap. I think there is a technical term there. Talking of which, the birds from along the Nene were identified by Nic as Wheatears, and there seemed to be general agreement on that from other birding colleagues. Plus, RSPB Dave was kind enough to qualify the "white rump" comment by letting me know that this is, in fact, the meaning of the name "wheatear". This seemed so improbable that I had to google it immediately, and it turns out he is correct. Although, in all honesty, answering "What does Wheatear mean?" with "1. small songbird of northern America and Eurasia having a distinctive white rump" suggests that it isn't actually its etymology that is being defined, but what the bird is.

It turns out that the rowing lake is just over 1km long, so I initially planned on running around it three times. However, at the end of the first length, it wasn't so much the specific muscle in my left calf that was hurting, so much as all the muscles in both calves. I thought maybe I should consider the walking option. As I rounded the top of the lake, however, I ran into slower terrain. The grass here was much longer, and disguised the water nicely. I hadn't really realised how wet it was before both trouser legs were drenched. At which point, I gave up caring about wet legs, which seemed the best approach, and thought about returning to the path, but immediately realised this in itself was a pointless strategy, as the path itself was not only flooded, but also being used as a duck pond (see right - yes, that's the actual path).

It seemed a marvelous opportunity to recover the aching calves. Cooling, too, I dare say. I walked through the flood (I know this looks like an action shot, but it is a "walking action" rather than a "running action") and thought about how immensely fun it would be if I was 5. Actually, I wasn't too miserable about it, because, as I suspect you know by the fact that I chose to run beside water for the second time in two days, a lot of me is actually 5. I would say, most of me, apart from the grey hairs, which are about 493, and this averages out at 38. I guess about half of the south side of the rowing lake was either very soggy indeed or actively under water, and what wasn't, I jogged in a very cursory manner. I decided, as I began my next "lap" that it would perhaps be more judicious to just stick along the north side. And, although I'd figured on going round three times, which would have been just over 6km, I actually decided to do a little loop up to the weir and back again at the top end of the lake, to make up my 2 laps to 5km, deciding to be as kind as possible to my calf muscles.

And all in all, I didn't do that badly. I ran it in 43 minutes total, which was two minutes faster than on Saturday and only 1 minute slower than the first time I ran, when I definitely didn't pause or walk quite so often. Being two minutes faster than Saturday's run isn't really a great comparison, though, because I ran 6km on Saturday, something that the Run Log doesn't take into account. Statistics. Oh, I remembered to charge up, and wear the garmin... so I can confirm that I did run 5km exactly... and that Runkeeper thinks it was 5.1 km, so only 100m out. In fairness, it was about 40m out, but I stopped the Garmin first, and then couldn't get my phone out of my back pocket.

I can hardly wait to see how my calf muscles are tomorrow...