Yesterday's running was interesting to say the least. We met up at observatory mesa (we have an observatory above the town that is the reason behind Flagstaff being a low light city so it doesn't affect the telescope's star gazing ability) and headed out on a rough trail. I don't know who's idea it was to meet there as it had been raining throughout the night so it was going to be very muddy no matter what. We slogged through the sticky mud for a mile and a half until we got to the forest service road where it was a little better under foot but still had a lot of soft slippy patches. It was the kind of mud that when you take 2 steps forward, your taking one step back. This was frustrating as I was wanting to get a decent run in. Although we met as a group I actually ended running on my own as everyone had either raced at the weekend or are racing this weekend and were running pretty slowly. I was also going longer, doing a 90 minute run so I was going to have to add on loops somewhere in the forest. I did the usual loop but then strayed off on a path I hadn't been before. I started getting a little worried about where I was but I had my GPS on so I could always check which direction I was running in if I really got lost. I was a little relieved when I saw a car driving on the trails and started to follow it. I actually passed it pretty quickly which tells you about how muddy the trail was. I could see some light shining through the trees so I followed that and I finally knew where I was. I still had 20 minutes of the run to go so I followed the trail down to railroad tracks and followed them back to the town. My shoes had gotten so heavy at this point as the mud had caked onto them and wasn't shifting. It started to come off once I hit the road and I suddenly felt like I was running in racing flats. The only problem with getting back to town is that I would have to get back to the observatory which meant running steeply uphill for a mile to get back to the car. This was really tough and I must have been running around 15 minute miling at that point. I finally got back to the car at 88 minutes and 13 miles behind me. I was covered in mud but luckily I had some dry clothes in the car. The mud had really hardened up on my socks and shorts so much that I couldn't even pick the chunks off. It felt so good to get into some dry shoes and a warm car and head home. I took a nice hot shower and felt so much better.

I made some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast and ate it while I did some work on my computer. I took a nice long nap on the sofa and felt a lot better afterwards. I decided to finally unpack my bag from the weekend and get all the loads of washing done before Julie got home. My second run was to be just 30 mins very easy so I was holding off until it stopped raining and lightening to do it. I then got an email about my visa application for going to China. I have been having a really hard time with this as they keep sending me stuff saying that I am missing documents or information. The process was supposed to take around 5 days total and it is already 9 days and I still have other things to be processed so it is going to be very tight to get my passports and visas back to me. The email said that they now needed my US passport as well as another $110 processing fee to prove that I was living in the US legally. They said they only needed a photocopy so I rushed down to the shop to fax them a photo copy only to find that when I got home there was another email saying they needed the actual passport. The shop was now closed so I would have to go first thing in the morning to send it off overnight to arrive on Thursday to be processed. By my calculations and without any more delays, I should have everything back on Monday, the day before I leave for China but knowing what I have already been through I am expecting something else to be thrown into the mix to delay my application further. I don't know what I do if they don't send me back my passport and visa as that means that I can't go to China. I'll just hope for the best and keep pestering them with emails to try and make sure they rush the process.

I went out for my second run with my rain jacket and cap incase it started to rain again and indeed it poured down on me about half way through the run. I was glad I was only going for a short run. The worst part was doing my drills and strides outside of the house when I knew that it was nice and warm inside. Julie was waiting for me with a big towel to dry off with. I quickly had a shower and got changed and then we headed out to my old workplace, Karma Sushi for dinner as we were celebrating 3 years together. We had a great dinner and it felt good to be sitting at the tables rather than serving at it. We ate quite a lot of sushi including my favourite, Albacore Tataki with wasabi aioli. We headed back to the house and caught up on the last 2 episodes of Glee and then headed to bed. The only problem was that the storm outside was very loud with the thunder and lightening going off every 30 seconds or so. It was crazy how long the thunder lasted also. Each time was about 30 seconds of thunder. That made it pretty tough to fall asleep but we eventually managed to. Not for long! We both woke up at around 1am with some more heavy storming going on outside. I think Julie fell back asleep ok but I was awake for about half an hour before nodding off again.