Running in the Rain

I’ve picked up running a bit for some of my exercise regimen. We live next to a city park with a paved trail around the lake, and the weather, though hot, has been mostly beautiful the past few weeks. The trail is 2 miles per lap, and our house is only half a mile from a trail entrance, so just one trip around and back home is 3 miles. I usually fully run the first lap, then I have to alternate running and walking the second lap.

I’ve been doing this in place of my P90X/Insanity cardio workouts about twice or thrice a week for three weeks, now. (I still do the P90X weight training.) It’s pretty fun, but it’s hard on the legs. Damn hard on the legs. I’m used to the extreme intensity of the P90X and Insanity workouts, but neither of them are so long and continuous on just the legs. Running is just legs, legs, legs, legs, legs for 30-60 minutes.

A few days ago, I was out running in the late afternoon, when a storm approached. I was just starting a third lap, (for the first time), when I heard some thunder off in the distance. I can finish this lap, I thought, before any rain gets here. And even if I did end up getting wet, so what, I was already sweating, and the water would be refreshing in this 90-degree heat.

I got half-way around the trail, and the bottom fell out of the sky. The rain came down so fast and hard it was like God had poured a bucket out on me. Within seconds, I was drenched right down to soggy, squishy running shoes. The wind was gale force, the rain was so cold, and sticks and pine cones and whole freakin’ limbs were falling out of the trees over my head. I got hit on the head three times by crap falling from above. I had to immediately take cover under a trail sign.

Wifegrit was texting me to warn me of the storm coming — they were getting hail where she was, at her mother’s house. My fingers were wet so my iPhone’s touch screen wouldn’t register most of my touches as I tried to text back. I tried calling, but again cold, wet fingers on the screen weren’t registering touches. Plus I had a bluetooth headset in my ears, and even when I got the phone to dial, I couldn’t get the signal to send to my headset. I couldn’t hear Wifegrit and she couldn’t hear me over the din of the blasting wind and rain, (and my moans of, “Oh God it’s so friggin’ cold!”).

At one point my brother called me, and I couldn’t activate the touch screen options to hang up, so I just shouted at him, “I can’t talk right now,” until he hung up. I couldn’t even hear what he was saying. He called me back the next day to ask what was going on. Turns out that in my fumbling with my phone, I had actually called him. It worried him, my strange call and frantic cries of, “I can’t talk!” Sorry bro, didn’t mean to scare you.

Eventually I managed to communicate with Wifegrit and explained that I needed her to come pick me up. There was no way I could run the 1.5 miles home through this storm. There was only a little hail around the lake, but all the debris falling from the tree branches was actually looking dangerous. Plus it was frickin’ freezing cold. And my shoes weighed 5 pounds each with all the water soaked into them.

At last, Wifegrit showed up with her minivan, (with leather seats — safe for a soaking wet husband’s butt), to rescue her man. Then, as if on cue, within a minute of me getting into the safety of the van, the rain lightened up to barely a sprinkle.

That was the most exciting any of my workouts have been. I hope they never are again.

Bullgrit