Wow. How can I describe the closing out of week eight of the Couch-to-5k program? It was... challenging. It's been cooler, cloudy & we've had the occasional sprinkling of rain of late. The last weather report I paid any attention to said that it would be clearing & warmer Thursday through the week end. It actually looked like this was what I would have in store. (You already know where this is going don't you?)
Fast forward... after home, feed the kitty, change into my running clothes, hit the AM\PM for Gatorade & a package of smoked almonds... it's down the road. Traffic is light.
The sun is shining though there are some clouds far off in the distance that look to be carrying significant precipitation. No problem. They’re miles away and the sun is shining. In fact the sun was shining for the entire drive down to McMillin. Out of the car, stretched, prepped the MP3 player. Started walking… the sun is STILL SHINING!
At four minutes into the session, it stops being sunny. The clouds are moving in and it begins to sprinkle. Another minute and I’m now running. It’s not too bad. The rain is actually rather refreshing and should keep me cool for the entire run. IT DID! I’m wearing nylon shorts and a cotton Carhartt T-shirt.
Around 10-minutes into the run the rain begins to come down a bit harder. It’s still not too bad. A cyclist passes me and comments “I’m quitting while I’m ahead.” She was apparently experiencing a premonition. Another 5-minutes and it is… RAINING. No sprinkles… no cooling sensations… it is RAINING.
I’m approaching the turn-around point… a few hundred yards or so… and right now I’m thinking that maybe I should turn around. I know I have enough distance on the return so that I can finish before I hit the intersection. Fifty more yards… and it’s raining even harder. Ah… thunder.
I turned around about 100 yards short of the usual spot. It’s now come down even harder… and I’m seeing lightening flashes. I go another 100-yards back… AND... THE... HEAVENS... OPEN... WIDE!!! Wind is blowing the rain into my right tear at a 90-degree angle. The cord from the ear buds is blowing straight out in the air. There’s so much water on my glasses I’m effectively blind now. I'm running by braille.
Hard to believe that it could get worse… but it does. I thought I was wet before… but that was just my naiveté`. No… I was about to learn the true meaning of TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR! The T-shirt is no longer soaking up water. The stuff is simply using the shirt as a drainage sluice to channel water off of my shoulders and down into my shoes… which are already near capacity.
The T-shirt now weighs around (what feels like) 60-bloody-pounds! The shoes weigh around 12-pounds each. I can feel the shirt stretching (no really) at the shoulders from the weight of the water. It’s okay. I’m close to the finish point. As if all this wasn’t bad enough… there is no place above the water table on the entire trail. I’m basically running up a creek bed.
Luckily, the ordeal ends almost exactly where I estimated… within about 20-feet in fact. This is good because I was about to drop. It kept pounding down upon me all the way back to the parking lot. I stopped under the cover to gather myself… and dig around for my car key. I wasn’t going to be fumbling for that danged thing in the rain for fear of drowning.
I get to the car, unlock the door, toss the MP3 player into the console (I guess that thing is fairly water tight because there was a puddle of water in the T-shirt pocket… but the player never shorted out). Off comes the T-shirt (wring out a gallon or so of water) & I drag on a spare hoody. Grab my towel… mop the head, cover the seat, into the car, door closed, heat ON HIGH, fan ON HIGH, defogger ON HIGH… mop off interior of windshield with paper towel… because it started to fog up as soon as I climbed into the drivers seat… start the engine and off I go.
Ironic that I was looking at Gortex running gear online the other day. Can you guess what I was thinking? Yep! "I should get some of this stuff before the weather gets rotten." Too late idiot! So the Asics Gels are SOAKED. It may take two to three days (or more) for them to dry out. If they're not dry by Sunday I'll need to wear the trial runners which means... running the trial. I won't be going anywhere near the rover if it's raining again like it did today. I don't want to be one of those guys you read about who got washed away by the rising river. Sheesh!
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