I had a good run today for the most part because I know I had some concerns about finishing the distance based on how I ran this week. I felt strong before, during and after, but hit a little snag in the whole thing.

Before I headed out at 7am this morning, I checked the weather and it seemed like we were looking at some isolated showers, with thunderstorms missing us far to the north. My wife even confirmed that the clouds on the radar looked like they were going north of us … Well, the forecast was wrong.. heres how it went.. I got out to just past mile 5 in my 20 miler when I heard thunder, now take note that the skies were cloudy the entire time prior, but it didn’t look like rain clouds. I was fortunate enough to be able to stop under the overpass of the Cross Valley expressway when the rain first started, but it was only a drizzle (although there was some thunder and lightning). I thought about just running back to the car and calling it a day, but nope, the trooper I am decided that I would just continue running, and that it was only a shower, we can deal with it.

So I got a few blocks further down in the light rain and turned on a side street and headed down when the rain really picked up. Thankfully there were some big trees I could get under, but it wasn’t bad enough to stop running yet … then next thing I know, it was a downpour. I got under a big tree and I realized that I didn’t have a degree in meteorology, nor did my wife, and I should’ve listened to the forecast … I stopped for over 15 minutes while it just rained, and was windy, and lightning and thunder, etc, etc .. it was awful. Even though I stood under a tree, I still got soaked, I mean SOAKED! The tree blocked the heavy rain, but the drops still were hitting me pretty good. I picked up my foot and water was running out of my shoe.. I thought, oh my, this is going to be fun.

After I realized that I was totally soaked anyway and the major part of the storm was over, I headed back out. I figured I had nothing to lose and at least I’d get the run going again.

So overall i’m not sure if the good run I had was because I took a 15 minute break or not, but regardless, it was a good run. I do think that next time, i’ll skip running in a thunderstorm, it seemed pretty dangerous. One thing I noticed at the end of my run was that just up the road from where I generally run, there were wires down, BIG wires and they had the road closed. I saw smoke, fire, etc as the utility company tried to get things working again. Guess it was a serious storm!

Probably the worst part of the whole run is that because of the rain, I ended up chafing in places I shouldn’t chafe (you know what I mean). It’ll take a day or two to get skin back, but other than that, the run was great.

lets hope for no rain tomorrow …. 🙂