Rain Forest Highlands

Sunday afternoon, we drove up to Highlands in the rain to enjoy "Don't Cry for Me Margaret Mitchell," the most recent production of the Highlands Cashiers Players.  During intermission, we stood outside under the porte-cochère watching the rain come down and talking with a man who had been coming here for years. "This is the way Highlands used to be!  It would rain all summer," he said.  "Couldn't ever play golf!"

That is very true.  We both remember summers when it would rain nearly every day, making a game of golf problematic and generating hundred of voracious slugs in the garden and on the impatiens.  Highlands has always been known as a Rain Forest, averaging 80 inches per year until these recent years of extreme drought.  It does seem as if the cycle is shifting and we are back in the Rain Forest again, and it has made running as problematic as golfing.  Today I drove up to Town, believing my weather app when it said there was a Zero percent chance of rain at 9:00 a.m., and sat in the car and watched it come down for nearly a half hour before giving up and driving home. 

I have run in the rain many times, have even run marathons on days like this, but perhaps my need for what we used to call "character-building runs" has finally waned.  I just don't like soggy shoes and cold, shivering trips home in the car these days.  So we went out of Town to do our grocery shopping and when we returned it genuinely seemed as if it was clearing up.  I drove back up to Founders Park, and indeed it was not raining at all; in fact, sunlight seemed to be flashing around on the horizon here and there.  I started off quickly and completed three miles before returning to the car for a few sips of Gatorade. 

But the plan was to run six miles today, so off I started again.  I did not complete twenty meters before it began raining again, and then pouring again.  I sprinted back for cover, stood and watched it for awhile, and then as it continued to intensify decided that I should go home.  A runner living in a Rain Forest should be grateful, after all, for a window of opportunity, but not greedy.