Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Racing a storm

It was just yesterday when I read a story about a runner, running in a storm with lightning, thinking things would be ok, then getting hit by lightning. Today, as I stepped out late in the afternoon to run a quick (by my standards anyway) 4 miles, the clouds to the north and west looked a bit dark, but appeared to be headed away from me. It was clearer in the direction I was going, so I headed out, figuring I would be ok.

About a mile and a half into the run, I felt a drop on my shoulder, shortly followed by another one. As I looked behind me (toward the north) an angry dark sky was bearing down, and it appeared I needed to hurry a bit. I ran a little further to make my total run about 3.4 miles, turned and headed home, the dark clouds seemed closer and not only ahead of me to the north but also to the west. Lightning flashed and a few more drops came down as I approach the mark where I would be 1 mile from home. I picked up my pace, still taking my walking breaks, but pushing the running. "I better have a pace under 11 minutes or I am going to be disappointed" I thought to myself.

I got home before the storm hit (and it was a pretty good one) having achieved a pace of 10:43, one of my fastest paces for that particular run. No lightning strikes that day, but Jim getting a bit worried and was about to come out and find me when I got home.

I am excited that my heel does not hurt at all - a good sign!

Tomorrow morning I will roll out of bed early and do 6 miles. Time to pick up the mileage now that I am just over 17 weeks away from the marathon. This is when many of the marathon training programs really kick in.

Hopefully the weather will be a little clearer in the morning! :-)

1 comment:

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