Hurricane Harvey

A training plan must be flexible, and it was not difficult to realize that some flexibility was needed this week as Hurricane Harvey began to drift slowly away from devastated Texas into the Tennessee Valley.  The radar yesterday showed the monster storm on the move, breaking apart as prevailing winds finally began to nudge it eastward.

That yellow/orange color means somewhere between three and four inches, a far cry from the 50 inches that fell in Texas.  In fact, the WeatherBug color spectrum only goes as high as 25 inches; such a volume of rain defies description even on a weather map.

I moved my interval workout scheduled for Thursday ahead a day, and got started earlier than usual, driving through drizzle that changed to light fog as I climbed onto the Highlands plateau.  After a warmup, I completed two 800-meter repeats, the same as last Thursday only a little faster, and then a solid mile starting at the school.  This proved to be one of those days when unexpected obstacles appeared out of nowhere - cars backing out of driveways, construction trucks stopping in the road, a tractor trailer inexplicably blocking Pierson Drive as it turned around.  I like to find motivation in these obstacles, though; I tell myself that I can overcome them in the same way I overcome distance and speed in that long unrelenting mile, running at the top end of my ability, glancing at the marks on the pavement, making sure I am staying on pace.  It was a satisfying workout!  Each interval had been faster by a few seconds than I had expected.

And today, expecting the rain shown on that map to be a continuous downpour for two days, I was surprised to note on my radar app that there were openings between the bands of rain, as you often see in hurricanes.  So I went up to the Park, ran my errands, and sat patiently in my car as the yellow clouds on the radar slowly crept away and a clear black opening appeared; and sure enough the rain turned into a fine drizzle, and I was able to start out on a four-mile easy run.

I couldn't help thinking about the devastation in Texas as I was running, those heartbreaking images on the news, as I dodged shallow puddles here in a place where water never accumulates and rises in a heavy rain, but flows away swiftly, roars away over the dam and down the Cullasaja River, gone out of sight forever.  It is a rare event when a culvert overflow in Highlands.  As I ran, the light drizzle disappeared completely, and during the last mile a wonderful, milky, peaceful kind of light began to shine all around me and there was absolutely no wind.  Leaves were shining in the rain, dripping silently into pine straw.

By the time I drove home, that little oasis of calm had begun to disappear, the sky was darkening, and it was beginning to rain again.  But it was not a cold rain, it was a warm, balmy, tropical rain, arriving right on schedule.

I hoped the sun was finally shining in Houston.

Running With Champions

Now that I am in my late 60s, I suppose I can admit that I am an "older runner."  The saying I like to use is "The older I get, the faster I was."  We older runners watch our PRs turn into PWs with every race, and marvel at how only a few years ago we used to run so much faster and farther.  I have come to realize with every long run these days that it feels like twice as long as it was; my ten-mile run on Saturday thus felt like twenty miles, that same heaviness and lingering fatigue exactly like the twenty-mile runs I used to complete during marathon training.

Those of us who by the grace of God, good genes, and careful training have managed to avoid serious injury - or even (for most of us) recover from injury - give thanks for small victories, and are grateful for what we still can do.  As Tennyson wrote in Ulysses:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

So the older I get, the more I appreciate the veteran runners who are even older than I am but are still contenders and champions.  I think of Fred Motz, ten years older than I am and like me training for an upcoming half-marathon, running quarter-mile repeats out there all by himself and logging longer and longer miles.  And especially three members of our club who are also members of the Atlanta Track Club's Master team:  Jim Askew, Morris Williams, and Charlie Patterson.  We don't see Charlie much because he doesn't live in Highlands, but it is always a pleasure to run with him when he is visiting.

Last month, the Club Newsletter that I publish featured Jim and his outstanding performance at the USATF Masters Outdoor Championship in Baton Rouge.   The Atlanta team won the championship, and much of it was because of 81-year-old Jim Askew.  As Morris wrote, "Jim played a major role in helping the team achieve that goal.  There were 109 teams and nearly 900 individuals entered in the meet and the Atlanta Track Club led all teams by scoring 1143 points . . .  That is the biggest margin of victory ever during the 50 year history of the meet.  Jim accumulated 53.5 points while the 24^th place team in the meet scored 51 points.  No other person in the meet scored more points than Jim."

You'd never know how talented Jim was; he is such a modest and self-effacing runner that it is left to Morris and others to write about his victories.

Friday night, our three Masters champions ran the USATF Road Mile in Flynt Michigan and again had outstanding performances.  As Morris reported,  "Jim Askew was again victorious in the 80-84 age division . . . On Friday night, Jim beat his expected time, running 7:47.  Age graded that was 79.64 percent.  Charlie Patterson ran 7:17 and placed 3rd in the 75-79 age division . . . Morris Williams ran 7:08 for 7th place in the 70-74 age division."

I will give thanks every day if I am still running at all in my 70s and 80s, let along running as well as they are.  So what an honor it is when I can run with them, right here in Highlands.

By complete coincidence, I did just that today.  I had arranged to meet Jim early in the morning to give him a copy of the latest print edition of Running Journal with its cover photo of the Atlanta Track Team; you can pick out Jim's trademark hat anywhere!  Only three days after his Road Mile, he was running at a slower pace than usual, and it was good to talk with this modest, congenial man about running and gardening and traveling and anything else on our mind as he completed a one-mile loop with me.  Then, as chance would have it, I came upon Morris on the final mile in my six-mile run; he turned and we ran back to the Park together, chatting and enjoying that special camaraderie that runners have.  

Today I ran with champions.

Deer Crossing

I was nearing the end of my long run today, trying to complete an extra half-mile to meet my goal of ten miles.  I ran down to the end of Fifth Street, stopped to stretch a little, and then came back and turned up Chestnut Street.  It was there that I saw something that I have never seen before on a run during nearly 35 years of running in Highlands.  No, not a snake (I've jumped over little ring necks on Lower Lake Road), nor a bear (I've seen them more than once, and closer than I liked).  A deer, a big doe, ambling casually across Chestnut Street just above Village Walk.  I stopped to watch as, less than twenty feet away, she strolled in the front yard of one of the condos in Mill Creek Village, and then walked down Village Walk where I had planned to run.

I love watching these graceful creatures, which we often see in the wide pastures down our road in Clear Creek, or in remote places like Mt. LeConte, where I took this photo a few years ago:

One does not expect to see deer wandering around Highlands.  But my wife and my mother-in-law have both seen them this summer, perhaps this same big doe.  She has found the Village Walk hostas so tempting, I suppose, that she was willing to risk encountering cars and gawking runners to nibble at them.  She tip-toed down Village Walk Drive, the same street where lawnmowers and leaf-blowers had been whining just an hour ago, and then it seemed as if she was becoming uncomfortable with my quiet, reverent pursuit, and in one quick move she leaped across a hedge and began walking across the big expanse of grass behind the condos, looking over her shoulder and twitching her tail.

A couple was walking toward me down the street, and although I did not know them I thought I had seen them earlier in the week.  "Just saw a deer, a big doe!"  I said.  "You might still be able to see her, over across that field!"

"We've never seen one here before," they said.  "Or a bear, either!"

"This is the first time I've seen one right in Town," I said.  "Isn't it great to live in a Town where you can come upon a deer?"

"It is," the man said.  "But sadly we're leaving Monday and going home."

I didn't ask where home was.  But I knew where home was for me, and I was thankful that it was here.  I was reminded of one of my favorite poems.

Deer Crossing

The deer crossed the road--a doe, I think--

As suddenly as a stone skipped on bright water,

Breaking into my lazy morning reverie.

She did not hesitate, but leapt across unerringly,

As surely as anything I knew--as surely

As an accident, a coincidence, an unavoidable encounter,

Like rope snapped out taut, an event in time and place

One knew could not have been circumvented.

How unlike us!  Headlong with her grace,

Plunging down the steep grade and out of sight;

Not choosing her footing carefully

As the theologians do.

Fall Training

August is not yet over, but it seems as if a subtle transition into a new season has begun this week.  Temperatures during my Monday and Wednesday runs had dropped into the low 60s, the humidity is gone, and the intoxicating fragrance of fall seems to be in the air already:  a blend of the first few fallen leaves, a hint of wood smoke, and windfall apples scattered around the base of that tree over on Pierson Drive.  The burning bushes opposite Lakeside Restaurant are already turning:

Surely this is the favorite season for runners, especially those in the South who have suffered through the heat and humidity of July and August.  This is also the time of year for distance running in the South, and I have trained for many fall marathons and half marathons in September and October.  I have my eye on the Bethel Half Marathon on October 14, and being as obsessive-compulsive as most runners I have devised a training plan.  The first thing to do was freshen up those painted splits along the one-mile route we normally run around Harris Lake.

This makes it possible for the OCD runner to punch the button on his GPS watch and run 400 meters, 800 meters, mile repeats, and tempo miles, trying to run the exact pace in training that will make possible the best performance on race day.  (Until that big construction truck backs out of a driveway, or Larry's dog suddenly darts to the end of his leash.)  "What's going on here?" a walking couple asked as I got my spray paint out.  "Oh, just making some marks on the pavement," and I explained.  They seemed happy to be walking and not trying to run some complicated series of intervals.

But I have always benefited from training plans and I enjoy following them.  I am no longer flying by the seat of my pants; I have filed a flight plan.  Not only that, I have entered it into my Outlook Calendar and synched it with my iPhone.  So at any time of day, wherever I am, I know where I am going and what I am going to do . . . for the next seven weeks, at least, when I will be living by that timeless aphorism, "Plan the run; run the plan."

Nothing could be easier!  Now all I have to do is run.

Total Eclipse of the Sun

The last total eclipse of the sun visible in the eastern United States occurred on June 8, 1918, the same year my father was born.  So I have never seen one in my lifetime, although I have a vague childhood memory of viewing a partial eclipse through a cereal-box viewer, probably on June 30, 1954 when one was partially visible in New England.

Despite the huge signs which the D.O.T. had erected an all the major highways leading to Highlands, there was surprisingly little traffic and plenty of parking.  (That private parking lot near the Post Office offering spaces for $20 per car was not used at all, and I find this highly satisfying.)  Perhaps the signs and the local newscasts frightened them away ("90,000 expected in Macon County!" the WLOS headlines blared in alarm).  I drove to Town to check things out around 9:00 a.m. and was surprised to find a Walhalla Road miraculously free of uphill traffic for about two miles until I came upon the quintessential Eclipse Viewer, driving an SUV with many bicycles strapped to a rear carrier and a luggage pod on top, going 15 to 20 mph, braking in all the curves, but then speeding up to 45 mph on the straightaway where I might have passed.  I was able to park only a block away from my usual place and completed a nice four-mile run, coming upon a man who had run in the Twilight 5-K who visited here often and who expressed an interest in joining the running group on Saturdays (always trying to recruit new runners).

By the time I finished up, though, it looked like there were hundreds of people headed toward Founders Park, carrying chairs and blankets and wearing black eclipse-themed shirts.  I hurried home, showered, and then Martha and I returned and set up our chairs and watched the parade of visitors making their way to the Park.  I recognized some local faces, but many seemed to be visitors who did not know that the building with the rusty roof was a restroom, and therefore were using the porta-johns lined up at the end of the street.  But the numbers were far fewer than predicted.   Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Bob Kieltyka - who had told me an hour ago that they were down to one-lane traffic at Rabun Gap, and that cars were parking all along I-40 - seemed disappointed.  He said he was going to drive around and check things out.  I walked around a little, too, partly to move my stiff legs and partly out of curiosity.  Main Street was deserted; I may have seen a tumbleweed rolling sadly across its far end.

But we enjoyed some delicious Mountain Fresh Barbecue, benefiting the Literacy Council, and sat watching people stroll by with their tiny cardboard-and-plastic eclipse glasses in hand.  A trio of little girls was practicing cartwheels.  A laid-back jazz group was playing quietly on the stage.  The young ladies from Entegra Bank began tossing down from on high behind the Park little rubber balls cratered like the moon, and then came down among us to pass out glow-in-the-dark bracelets and paddle-fans.

Then it began to cloud up.  There was a kind of restlessness as folks began walking out in the street, scanning the horizon anxiously to the east and the west where a faint gleam of blue sky lingered just beyond reach.  "I think it's going to be a washout," Marty called to me, as I made my way back to the car for an umbrella.

The magical hour of 2:35 p.m. was fast approaching, and it seemed to me as if the sky was beginning to become a little darker.  I began to wonder if those visitors staying in the (allegedly) $1000 per night rooms at Old Edwards Inn this weekend had remembered their Eclipse Insurance.  I could detect a little grumbling going on around us, but after all, what did we expect on an August afternoon?  "Couldn't they have scheduled this for October, or for a weekend?" I had asked Bob earlier.

But then something truly awe-inspiring began to happen as it grew darker and darker, so dark that the streetlights came on, and darker still, as if it were 10:00 p.m.  People began to cry out in delight.  (We were not in a location to experience this, but others later told me they heard crickets and katydids, and bats began to flit around.)  What an incredible thing!  And then the clouds parted just a little, and a little more, and we all hooked our little cardboard classes on and watched as the moon drifted across the sun - not full totality, but just as strange and lovely, that just after moment.  It reminded me of that Wallace Stevens poem:

"I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after."

There was some scattered applause, because I suppose that is how we express our appreciation at anything these days, even a phenomenon of astrophysics.  I had a crick in the back of my neck after awhile as I kept hooking on my glasses when the clouds parted and gazing upward, watching the moon slowly unblock the sun and return to where it belonged as the normal afternoon light returned.

There were some pretty expensive cameras set up all around us (and at least one cereal-box viewer), and I wondered if any of them captured it as well as my own little iPhone, protected through one lens of my eclipse glasses:

That's the best I could do:  an image that looks a little like a bright star that has fallen into a lake of clouds.  Totally extraordinary.

Twilight 5-K

This was a race that I had trained hard for, and I completed it in a relatively good time - faster than last year, and good enough for a Third Place age group award - but not as fast as that 8:19 mile late in my long run last Saturday had projected.  I did everything correctly - nutrition, hydration, good warmup with some fast pickups as I normally do - and the weather was perfect:  cool, dry air had moved in, and although temperatures were in the upper 70s, the humidity was low.  But as I said in my post of last Saturday, "There is always something new to learn about running and training," and today was no exception.

It seemed difficult to wait all day; I felt that I had been ready to run first thing in the morning, and then it seemed as if the "fire in my belly" was slowly cooling throughout the long day.  6:00 p.m.is not the best time for me to run a race these days, but I have run many Anderson Midnight Flights at 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., and the Pigeon Forge Midnight Run at the stroke of midnight, where the objective seemed mostly to be able to stay awake until race time.  Martha ran many of those night-time races with me, and I know she was disappointed not to run this one (she is still recovering from "Runners Knee") but her encouragement and support were appreciated (even going so far as to fetch steak tacos from El Azteca's Food Truck parked on Carolina Way after the race).

Another surprise was that there was little traffic on the roads, and plenty of parking.  Where were all of the eclipse watchers?  They must be waiting for Monday.  The empty roads were a little eerie.  We had been told to park at the Rec Park, or even the Post Office, and carpool if necessary, but we found a parking place in front of the Episcopal Church, just around the corner from the start.  A wedding was taking place at the Catholic Church, which Race Director Derek Taylor seemed to take in stride - big buses backing in the parking lot, right on the course near the start in that first turn, men and women dressed in their nuptial finery.  Our friend Will, dressed in running clothes and wearing a number on his shirt, had cut through the parking lot on foot and was amused when the police asked him if he was part of the wedding party.

But traffic control was absolutely perfect, and 450 runners made this the largest race we have ever had in Highlands.  It started on time and I was well-positioned; I had planned to run 9:20 miles, and at the half-mile split (top of Chestnut Street) I was at 5:00, just perfect, but from that point on I felt sluggish, my legs heavy and unresponsive.  I watched Vicki and Jim take off ahead and simply did not have it within me to follow.  But I did pass other runners, most of them on hills, and I maintained a steady pace of 10:00/mile, and so when I came around that final turn down the alley, and back down toward the finish line, I felt that I had given it my all.  Which is the best any of us can do.

I love being at races, simply absorbing the experience, and a hometown race is even better:  chatting with friends before and after, comparing times, watching so many runners, young and old, celebrate this wonderful gift of fitness.  I talked to Will and Gina, and Vicki, and Fred and Karen, and then I ran into Don (we sold him a house on Little Bearpen when we were in Real Estate) and Michelle and Glenda, and Canty (who came in Fourth Place overall, I learned), and countless others.  What a joy it is to circulate before and after a race like this, laughing and sharing stories.  I will never again be able to set a P.R. - I set my 5-K P.R. of 21:13 18 years ago, when I was 50 years old - but I will always be able to enjoy the satisfaction of giving my best, and watching that same satisfaction in those who go the journey with us.

Eclipse Traffic

There is another factor to consider for those of us who are planning to run the Twilight 5-K tomorrow night:  Eclipse Traffic.

 
"Only three days until the Great American Eclipse of 2017," the Asheville weatherman announced this morning.  Highlands lies in the so-called "Path of Totality," and local news sources predict that perhaps as many as 25,000 to 50,000 people may arrive on Monday (or earlier) to view this phenomenon.  Our Mayor has announced that we should all roll out the welcome mat for these expected visitors, and it looks like the Town is also rolling out porta-johns all over Town.  The North Carolina D.O.T. has rolled these signs into position, one of them on NC-28 just below the top of our road.

I know that it would be churlish of me to speak ill of these innocent visitors who are simply trying to view perhaps the only total eclipse of the sun they may see in their lifetime.  But even the D.O.T. seems to think that we should expect congested areas, and perhaps even blocked roadways.

We really don't know what to expect, although it is definitely the subject of constant speculation on the part of everyone I have talked to this week.  Some businesses are planning to close, many residents are concerned about eclipse-viewers simply pulling up on their lawns on Monday, and the Town is expected to run out of food (motel rooms have been sold out for months) and, I expect, toilet paper.  We stocked up on both earlier this week, as if in preparation for a blizzard.  I even cranked up the generator and made sure we had gasoline in case the power goes out.

Race Director Derek Taylor was spotted this morning with a crew who had apparently commandeered the Methodist Church Bus, en route to set out traffic cones, close off critical streets, and prepare for the placement of race volunteers.  "Plan for the worst, hope for the best," as every Race Director knows.

So Saturday's race might have to include a five-mile warmup run, up to the Park, and a nice cool-down back down to our house.  And lots of spectators along the way.

Tapering

This is the final week before the Twilight 5-K on Saturday ("only a 5-K!") and I am in taper mode - that time in training, whether it is 5-K or marathon training, when a smart runner backs off and runs a little less and a little slower.  The saying I used to hear in marathon training still applies no matter the distance:  "There is not much you can do at this point to improve your performance, but there is a lot you can do to make it worse."

Monday I ran an easy four miles, but I included two 400-meter intervals at race pace based on that one-mile I ran on Saturday (see previous post).  Race pace for me is 9:20/mile, and so the projected 400-meter time should have been 2:20 and I was pleased to run 2:19 and 2:19.  And, more important, the effort felt easy.  Today I ran an easy three miles, stopping to stretch here and there.  It was tempting to throw in a fast interval, because it was cool and because I felt strong, but I did not.  And tomorrow I may run another two or three, walking a little here and there, just to keep moving.

The weather forecast for Saturday predicts temperatures in the 80s and high humidity, so the prudent runner (I'm till trying to decide if that describes me) will adjust his expectations in such conditions, especially the runner who has not been running in the heat of the afternoon.  Will it rain?  Anything short of a downpour might be welcome. 

I remember hearing marathon great and Olympic medalist Catherine Ndereba (AKA ‘Catherine the Great”) tell reporters on the eve of the New York Marathon many years ago that she never paid any attention to the weather forecast.  She had decided to pay attention only to those elements of a marathon that she could control.  That is a good philosophy to have . . . for running and for living!

Catherine Ndereba

Good Days

There is always something new to learn about running and training, and today I made a surprising discovery that I have been thinking about all afternoon.

I have signed up for the Twilight 5-K, which will take place exactly one week from today, and even though it is "only a 5-K" in the words of one of my running friends, I have applied the same serious training techniques that I would for a longer race.  Thus I have been running a mixture of long runs on Saturdays (10 miles for several weeks), hills on Mondays, and intervals on Thursdays.  The classic distance for intervals for a 5-K is 400 meters, and it is a workout that I have been doing for years leading up to 5-Ks and 10-Ks.  In the past weeks I have worked up to eight of them, and reviewing my running log for this month, my average time has been 2:14, 2:14, 2:16, 2:12, and 2:14.  Those are pretty consistent times and I feel that I could not have gone much faster.  I managed to actually hit 2:09 twice over this period of time, never faster. If I had enough time before the race, I would take the next step and decrease the rest time between intervals.

The other thing I have been doing, more in anticipation of the half marathon I would like to run in October rather than this 5-K, is running a fast mile late in the long run, as I have mentioned before in this blog.  I have always felt that this trains the body to run hard, even when tired.  I haven't done as good a job of recording these miles, but my log shows that I ran a 10:33 mile two weeks ago (in a long run at an average place of 12 or 13 minutes per mile).

It was a humid morning and all of the other Saturday runners had completed their runs, and I realized as I was coming down Fifth Street that I was nearing the beginning of a relatively flat one-mile route that I have often used to time myself.  So almost without thinking, I hit the LAP button on my watch and started to run fast.  Everything felt strong and smooth, and some of the stiffness and little niggles I had experienced earlier seemed to melt away.  I thought I would push a little and see if I could sustain this pace for a mile, and I got into a rhythm, powering up the Satulah Ridge Road hill, and on around the lake, eyeing the familiar markers on the road as I passed them.  I was expecting that I might be able to break 10 minutes.  I hit the LAP button again and saw that I had just run this mile in a surprising 8:18.  I thought that perhaps I had misread the numbers, but when I finished up after a cool-down mile, I read the history of this run and confirmed it.  Then my mind began playing tricks (as it can do after hard running!) and I thought I may have made a mistake about the distance.  Should I have started at that earlier mark, across from Spring Street?  Had I run only 0.75 or 0.875 miles?  So I actually drove the course in my car and confirmed the distance.

How can this be?  My average quarter-mile time was in excess of 2:05, four of them, without pause.  It was a puzzle, but one that I have been enjoying thinking about much more than I would have if I had run an 11-minute mile.  What was different this morning?  It was just as humid, and on top of that I had already run seven miles (I normally run a one-mile warm-up on interval days).  I am thinking of sending this data to Morris, who is even more OCD than I am but an experienced Coach.  But I suspect he would say, "You've been running your intervals way too slowly!"  Or perhaps I should plan on warming up for seven miles next week! 

I can only conclude that I was having a good day!  Yes, I have seen this before - runners have bad days, and they have good days, and it often has nothing to do with temperature or humidity or fuel or hydration or any other factors than can be analyzed. 

And I do enjoy this side of running, this analyzing, just as much as I do those days when I take long, leisurely rambles through dappled sunlight, along the shore of a lake filled with waterlilies, or laughing and joking with running friends.  I enjoy timing, and measuring, and trying to improve in the approach to a race where I will test myself against others and against myself.  So I spent a little time using Race Predictors and Running Calculators.  I found a great calculator on a site called Running for Fitness, which extrapolated my mile time to many distances, based on my age and my gender.

That is very encouraging (and a runner should find encouragement wherever he can).  According to this highly detailed chart, I should be able to run next week's 5-K in 28:52 (I had been hoping to merely break 30 minutes).  And I should be able to run a half-marathon in 2:12:21.

If I have a good day.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself.  I only want to do the best I can, and be thankful that there may still be some good days in store.  As do we all.

Doors of Opportunity

A cold front has been slowly moving into the area, and the cool, dry weather of last week has been replaced by rain and humidity again.  So it has been a challenge to find a good opportunity to run on dry roads.  I don't mind running in the rain - "character-building runs," we used to call them - but soggy shoes slow down workout times, and I have been doing a lot of speed workouts in preparation for upcoming races.

Fortunately, I have been able to rely during this rainy period on one of my favorite iPhone apps, which I am sure I have referred to in this blog before.  It is called MyRadar, and it displays very accurately the same Doppler radar that all the weather forecasters use, in its simplest of forms and for the entire world (I actually became curious last week and discovered that you can swoosh over to the UK and check out what it is doing in Scotland.)  A simple squeeze of fingers, or expansion of fingers, zeroes in on rain-clouds and shows them arriving, minute by minute, all across the country.  It is very accurate, and in the past I have been able to find "windows" between storms, sometimes very small windows of 30 or 60 minutes, just long enough to squeeze in a good, dry run.

Monday morning I waited patiently as rain drifted by, sitting in my car at Founders Park in heavy rain.  But I kept consulting my phone and it looked as if a break was coming, and sure enough it did, at 10:45 a.m.  I completed a good five-mile run, including some short hill sprints.

This morning we again awoke to intermittent rain, rattling on the roof; but I checked my faithful app:

It was raining lightly, but it looked like those yellow blobs would be here in about 45 minutes or so.  So I headed out early, parked at the Founders Park, and as forecast the rain cleared out and I was able to complete a good workout, including some 400-meter intervals exactly as I had planned.

What a strange run it was, though!  The mist disappeared and fog began to hang in the trees, and the morning seemed cool and quiet.  As I turned the corner at Fifth Street, I thought I could hear the voice of a man shouting, or arguing.  As I approached, I realized that he was singing, heartily and at the top of his lungs, as a celebrating man might do upon emerging from the Ugly Dog Pub up on the hill.  But it was surely too early for drunken singing in Highlands!  I can only guess that someone was out in the cool of the morning as I was, between the showers, giving thanks with an exuberant voice of song for this opportunity. 

If the door of opportunity opens, the wise runner goes through it without hesitation.