Through the storm

Last Thursday was my most ridiculous run ever. For the most part I believe in sticking to a schedule with robotic like precision. I don’t want to have to ask myself… ‘should I run today?” It is easier to just follow the chart. Sometimes the chart and the weather don’t get along very well though. Thursday I was scheduled for 6 miles. The weather was very iffy. By iffy I mean we were expecting 100mph winds on the coast and a ton of rain. I didn’t want to run at the gym though, so after testing the waters so to speak, I headed out anyway.

Big mistake.

When I started my run is was very blustery but just barely raining. I’ve been out in similar weather, so no big deal I thought. It was one of those days where the wind seemed to be coming from every direction at times, and the gusts bump you about like you are slam dancing at the Mayor’s Ball. (Not that I know anything about that) ;) Anyway… before I’d reached the 1 mile mark, the rain joined the wind, and the wind obviously thrilled at the new company, really started to rock. It was predominately at my back for the first 3 miles, and somewhere past the 2 mile mark it really picked up, and it occurred to me… ‘oh…my… God… I am going to have to turn around and head into this mess’.

My normal turn around point is a bridge over a beautiful pond. I couldn’t get there though… because the pond was flooded up over the entrances to the bridge.

And then I turned around.

In the NW our storms don’t have cool names. In general we don’t even refer to them once they are gone. Occasionally one will pick up a lasting name… like the ‘Columbus’ day storm, but in general they come and go with generic terms like the ‘wind storm’ or the ‘ice storm’. The storm last Thursday, while lacking a proper name, was one hell of a storm nonetheless. “Hurricane like” it was described as. And there I was, one man soaked to the bone plodding along in his Nike running shoes against a very pissed off Mother Nature... like I’d just brought her daughter home late from a date with lipstick all over my face.

The second leg was as bad as I feared. The wind was gusting near the airport at more than 50 mph. The next closest town to us recorded 70 and next the the airport I bet it was pretty darn close to that. The rain was stinging my face like little needles. Bits of trees were flying everywhere. I could hardly see, and I was not making much progress at ALL into the wind. A few hundred yards and I was just about spent, but I still had 3 miles to go. Those 3 miles were the slowest I have covered so far in my training, and unless I decide to run up Mt. Hood, they will always be my slowest. To say I was soaked might be an understatement. It was like I had been swimming. At times I was running through 3-4 inches of water... and there was no getting around it either.

When I stopped at an intersection to cross, with the wind and rain in full force, it really sunk in how stupid I was to be out there. I wished I could teleport myself my self back home. The whole thing wasn’t hard-core, it was idiotic.

I vow never to run in hurricane like conditions again, but at least now I know that if I am trapped in one with 6 miles to run to safety… I can do it. =)