I don't know if you all noticed, but the winter storm named Brutus is upon us up here in the north. Somebody talked me into running a marathon in January... in San Diego of course, where it's awesome weather all year round. Although I should be thankful it'll be over at the end of January, when the weather is really getting bad.
Today the weather was calling for rain and snow, and a mixture of both. Looking at the weather it looked like the morning would be cold but dry and then worsen as the day went on. Usually I wait for it to warm up before my run, but I figured I would get my 6 miler in before Brutus reared his ugly head.
I got to work and one of my coworkers was going to run 8 miles, but said he was running around 2pm because it was going to be nicer then. We watched the "hourly" prediction on the weather like a hawk. It kinda seemed he was right, but it didn't look that bad out. I should follow my intuition. I let him talk me into running later. Around 11am I decided to go ahead and eat my pot-roast and be fine to run by 1 or 2. Around noon, my coworker started getting ready for his run, deciding he better get it over with before it got bad. I didn't think my stomach could handle it, so I thought about waiting.
From the window he shouted "Oh man! Maybe I'll wait, it's really coming down!"
I looked out the window at the cold rain. It looked miserable. Damnit. I knew I should've run this morning. Argh!
We looked at the hourly weather again. It didn't look very promising. I hemmed and hawed about it for awhile while he put on his shoes. "Do you want to be a better marathoner?" he asked as I stared into my gym bag.
Ugh. Ok, fine. I grabbed my shoes and changed, came out of the bathroom and he was gone. Must be hiding somewhere. I put on my rain coat and my ear warmer headband and walked out into the rain. It was 40 degrees tops. Probably lower. Snow was predicted down to 3,000ft and I was starting out at 2700 and running uphill.
As I ran up the mountain hill, I could see a clearing in the clouds and had hope that I would soon be free of this freezing rain pelting me in the face. Soon enough it stopped and I relaxed a little. Until about 2.5 miles into it when I got hit in the face with sharp icy rain. I yelled out loud at the rain (still no sign of my coworker). Just before my turn around spot, I came across a lone horse in the road. I slowed to a walk so as not to spook it. Below the road on a steep slope was a cow. And below the cow were two very unhappy looking individuals. It's round-up season around here and everyone is rounding up their free-range cows. I wasn't far from the corrals where I was to turn around, but I figured if I kept going I would spook the cow, and boy would those people be pissed. I wished them well and turned around to head back.
And boy did I get a killer pot-roast-side-cramp. Argh! I wanted to run faster to get back but the sharp pain in my side had me barely shuffling back up the hill. I finally made it back to the station and walked a little to cool down. I got one of those weird "how did I get here" feelings and wondered where on earth the last 6 miles went. Funny how that happens sometimes. Must be a coping technique.
This is just the start of many agonizing winter runs. I've run in worse though, and I'm sure I'll run in worse before I finish this next marathon.
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