Not Right in the Head

How many times have I posted a screen shot of the Weather Radar App on my phone showing green, yellow, orange, and red shapes approaching?  That is approximately how many times I have suffered an acute attack of Not Right in the Head syndrome, the phrase that Martha uses when I behave in a less than prudent manner. 

The syndrome is not limited exclusively to rain.  Sometimes I have run in strong gales, and snow, and stinging hail, and yes, Martha has done so, too (although the NRITH acronym seems to be reserved for me).  Martha well remembers that pitiful selfie I took of the two of us huddling in the car, soaked and shivering, after the Flying Pirate Half Marathon which we ran entirely in the rain one year.  (I can’t seem to find it on my computer.)  We’ve had a lot of fun throughout our running careers.  It reminds me of the motto of the U. S. Postal Service:

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor being right in the head
Stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed runs.

Or something like that.

Rain threatened yesterday morning, although there was not quite as much green on the radar.  I started out in a light drizzle that quickly disappeared, and although the sky remained an angry gray, I was able to complete a nice three-mile run, ending with a fast mile.  An hour after I returned it began raining.  Runner’s luck, to find that window of opportunity, to seize the opportunity, and return from the battle unscathed! That is always a satisfying feeling.

But runner’s luck works the other way sometimes, the dice tumbles upside down.  This morning I started out in a light drizzle that quickly turned into a gradually intensifying rain.  I turned at the Picnic Area, dodging the deeper puddles, and on the way back I kept telling myself, “I’ve run in worse conditions than this!”  I was remembering that Flying Pirate with Martha, and the full marathon I ran in Huntsville one year mostly in the rain, and that other drenched-to-the-skin marathon at the Outer Banks, where I vividly remember one young woman who appeared to be five or six months pregnant laughing and going out of her way to wade through the deeper puddles.  After a while your shoes are soaking wet and weigh ten pounds each, and dodging puddles just.  Doesn’t. Matter.

I suppose that’s one reason we complete those “character-building” rain-soaked runs, and those 90-degree runs in 99% humidity with not a breath of wind, and those runs into wind so strong you have to turn and run a few steps backwards just to feel it relent a little.  It was not that bad this morning as rainy runs go, but I was still glad to return to the condo and exchange my soaking shirt for a dry one.  “I know, Not Right in the Head,” I admitted as I opened the door. 

The reason I ran twice in two days, and once in the rain, was that I looked ahead at the forecast for tomorrow morning and it looks like one of those even more character-building runs, and not only that, one of those runs that just don’t accomplish anything else.  The Weather App for the entire morning showed those amusing little red-and-white wind socks clinging to a bending flagpole that indicate gale-force winds:

And the forecast calls for snow, which we have never seen out here except one very light dusting one year.  

It would be nice to watch snowflakes fall!  And to be inside having a cup of Friendly Market shrimp and corn chowder for lunch, diagnosed with a rare case of Uncharacteristically Right in the Head.