Gray Black is a runner. He has a loop in Centerville from his Symphony Homes office and that's one of his routine runs. With his AppleWatch and Strava, he gets some fun feedback. He started tracking this run November 2022 ... almost to 150 repeated runs!
Saturday, October 4, was one of the few "open" weekends for my half-marathon man. It was raining a lot, and I texted him (he'd headed North catching up on some work) that I was glad this rain hadn't happened last weekend (the half marathon he and Coop ran). But then I remembered Gray LIKES to run in the rain! And sure enough, he'd done a bigger run and did a little write up to me. It was eloquent enough, and with the Strava shares, felt like a built in blog post!
I had charted a big run up north and with the rain in the forecast was looking forward to giving it a go. After last week's disappointing half (for me) it was a chance to redeem myself, as if that is even a thing. I could see storm clouds in the west as I got to the office - some lightning. Up north I got prepped and on the run right around 6:00. Conditions were great - cool, not cold, no wind - few cars and pretty peaceful. As I reached mile 4 or so I could tell the storm had moved toward the east, where I was running. Some light rain began to build.
Within about 10 minutes the rain was in full swing - not torrential but very steady and pretty heavy. Soon a wind from the south was blowing. This would be a headwind for around mile 5 when my route turned to head back toward the office. I wish I had a camera that could show the conditions. It was something to see. None of this bothers me. The only thing that concerns me in a rainstorm is lightning. The odds are generally VERY slim at getting hit by lightning but it's still intimidating. I had one lightning strike seemingly directly above me at mile 5. There would be 3 or 4 other strikes that didn't seem particularly close like the first one. That was about it for lightning.The rain began to ease around mile 7 or so though the wind kept steady, pushing against me. But I felt good. I wasn't gassing out. My legs kept their strength and didn't feel heavy. It was starting to lighten up around mile 7 or 8 and by mile 9 I turned back toward the north and the headwind was now a tailwind. Nice. Rolled back into the office feeling very content. 10.28 miles in all. Not a half but still a major run by my measurements. This might have been my favorite run of the year - it cycled from dark to light, from dry to rainy, from calm to windy - all in the same run. My body felt great. What a morning :)
It had stormed quite a bit the night before too ... lots of lightening. I know that is something that Keaton likes to catch on camera (A Little Look at Lightning) so I checked in with him to see if he'd taken any pictures during this storm. He had ...
