Gotta love nature.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I checked the humidity before heading for the Metropark. 102%. I pretty much saturated my clothes with sweat tying on my shoes. Yeah it was muggy. It was also looking like a good thunderstorm on the way, which pretty much eliminated biking, kayaking and walking with a metal thing strapped to my back. Running was all that was left.

Yet, I love to run in the rain and hoped that it would start before I finished. I only had 45 minutes for a run because I had an evening appointment. So…get going.

I was only 5 minutes into the run when a whoosh went over my head. Landing lightly on a tree just off the trail was a beautiful barred owl. They hunt in dense woods and during the day and so I was lucky enough to see him at work. He watched as I approached, then did a 360 with his head to see if I’d still be there. I was and he took flight, but this was another pleasant reminder as to why I love to run the trails.

I was expecting to feel a little crisper on the run following the speed workout yesterday and I did…for about 15 minutes. Then that same sluggish feeling set in and I just struggled for the rest of the run. The good news was that, with that ugly feeling came the rains. I’d like to say they cooled me off, but it just seemed to make it steamier. No matters…I was slopping through the puddles, shoes getting heavier with every step, but enjoying the rain pounding in on me. I know you’re not supposed to be under trees with lightning flashing above, but there were so many trees…I kind of thought the odds were in my favor, though getting struck would have fit for the day…

I was sitting in an office working with a client at a table, when the table started doing a weird, vibrating thing. The person I was with had his hands on the table and I was sure he’d felt the movement, but when I asked him, he said he hadn’t felt a thing.

“I might have bumped it with my leg,” he said.

“Yeah? Did you bump my chair and rattle the floor too? I felt everything moving,” I said, rising from my chair and headed out of the office to see if anyone else had felt it. I looked around and saw one guy sitting calmly in a chair, reading a magazine. The receptionist was answering a call, unconcerned and nothing else was moving…except me. I don’t know, but I was pretty sure I’d just felt the earth moving. Later in the evening, my daughter asked me if I’d heard about the earthquake in Canada.

“Well…I didn’t hear about it, but I sure as hell felt it,” I said, pleased with the confirmation that I hadn’t (or had) been feeling things.

The lightning never bothered me and I finished my run saturated from head to toe with a combination of my salty sweat and a cleansing rain. I may have run poorly, but a bad day running is better than a good day of sitting on my duff doing nothing.

Run duration: 45 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140.

Calories burned during workout: 765.