Last weekend, I did something I thought I would never do....
Rain was forecast all weekend, but I needed to get in a 16 mile run in preparation for the IllinoisMarathon (April 11 at Univ of Illinois). I despise dreadmils (um I mean treadmils), and get really bored on an indoor track about 40 laps in (10 laps to a mile), so I was determined to somehow get it in through the rain. Saturday morning, I woke up at about6:30am (actually Sarah woke us up),and it had rained overnight - but the rain had subsided (for the moment anyway). By 7am, I decided to head out for a run and see if I could squeeze it in without too much rain (or pain). It was about 35 degrees outside so I put on shorts, a short sleeve shirt, a long sleeve shirt, and my light weight gloves. I Laced up my running shoes, put on my geeky water belt and headed out. On a side note, one benefit to winter running is that the long sleeve shirts easily pull over my water belt, so I don't look like a dork - just an idiot because I'm often running in sub zero weather.
I knew this wasn't going to be a normal run when a woman in her mid 40's ran past me as I was walking to my typical starting point and yelled out at me (in a British accent) - 'You're cheating'...when I asked 'why' she said 'you just walked up that hill'. I couldn't deny it - she was right - but then again I could have said - want to run 16 with me today - I'm guessing she would have refused. But, she was a good runner - I followed her for about a mile and did that mile in 8:15 before she headed one way and I turned toward the Des Plains River trail.
About 4 miles into the run, I reached a forest preserve and realized I was having my best run of the year - everything was feeling perfect and I was running at a great pace for this early in the season (8:30 pace). About then it started to sprinkle very lightly - this isn't so bad I thought. I kept heading north - about 1 mile from the nearest cover (in the forest preserve) it started pouring rain - one of the hardest rains I've ever been in. It didn't help that the rain was extremely cold, the temperature had dropped a few degrees, and wind had kicked up to what felt like 100 mph (but was probably around 20 mph). I headed back to the forest preserve but had an idea - how about I take this new path over to the road and go straight to the preserve rather than winding the mile back down the trail. What I didn't think about was how far from the road I actually was - or how much the trail winded over to the road. After spending way too long on that 'short' trail, I headed back toward the forest preserve on the road. I was soaking wet, cold, and cars were whizzing by me giving me looks like 'what an idiot - doesn't he know it's pouring?' It turned out to be almost almost 2 miles back to the forest preserve taking that 'short cut'.
I finally made it to a bathroom and ducked inside. When I looked down, my legs were literally purple - ouch I thought (although the cold had made just about my entire body numb, so I really couldn't feel anything). I said aloud "I'll give it a few minutes, it has to lighten up" (Sometimes talking to myself helps motivate me to keep going). Ten minutes later and no end in sight, I did something I swore I would never do....
I threw in the towel! I called my wife for a ride home - 4 hours later when it was still pouring outside, I knew I made the right decision - although I was mad at myself for giving up. I think if I had on pants, I would have kept going - as I wouldn't have seen my purple legs.
Mother Nature won that day, but I'll be back to fight another day.
Get out there and run....
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