Cloudy with a Chance of Slurpee

Time of departure: 7:00am
Return: 8:43am
Sunrise: 6:26am
Sunset: 5:41pm
Phase of the moon: Waxing Gibbous, 95% of moon illuminated, Rises at 3:30pm

Temperature: 34F-37F
Wind Chill: 29F
Dew Point: 32F
Humidity: 86%
Lake Temp: 33F-36F

Route: The now-usual off-trail run
Approx Distance: 6 miles
Running buddy: Matt
Clothing: RCW with tights

The Drive Activity: Congested
Dog beach Activity: zip
People tally:
2 Walkers
0 Runners
3 Cyclists
4 People with dogs
1 Poet

What did I eat pre-run? 1 cup water, ½ banana, 1 date, swig of OJ
How did I feel? Awesome. Freaking awesome. Though my right flexor digitrum longus, I think it is, was giving me some pain. But the thing about running in the conditions we were running in is that it was getting iced ALL the time.
What do I like about running? It’s a freaking adventure, man! And if we’re not going run (note: zero runners today) who is going to bear witness??? And that’s what this is about, isn’t it?? The universe bearing witness of itself. Golly, WHO am I??? I think I'm hungry.
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First of all, I have to apologize for my last blog. Yes, I was on a soapbox. One of my all-time favorites, in fact. Yes, it was because I myself was feeling kind of crappy. Yes, I was whiny and complain-y. Yes, that’s as bad as it gets with me. I considered taking it down, cleaning it up, or posting a follow up damage-control blog, but, well, decided that sometimes I get like that and that would just have to be okay.

On to today’s run. It started with me looking out the windows and seeing rain hitting the panes of glass. You’re kidding right?? Okay, maybe this is the flooding rain Eric had said was coming. So I checked the temperature. 34F. Do you know what this means? Do you know what I knew this meant? It meant it’s going to be messy. “Characterized by a dirty, untidy, or disordered condition.” M-E-S-S-Y. Messy.

Without a running buddy, chance of me running? 0.7%. With a running buddy? 100% That is the beauty of a buddy, especially a buddy you don’t live with, you don’t talk to immediately prior to leaving, and who is as reliable as Matt is. I just know that at 7:00am + (the time it takes to run 4 blocks) Matt is going to be waiting for me. And if I’m not there, well, it means I’m not cool. I couldn’t hack. I couldn’t get my crap together to get out the door and be there. So I go.

Also, Matt would never let me live it down if I wimped out because of the weather. And besides, I get a strange high off of running when it doesn’t make sense to be even outside.

I go, in my new and improved RCW, out into the elements. Are you familiar with the book, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs? It’s a fun book. With that in mind, it’s as if it rained Slurpee. Like the slushies Eric and I used to get at K-Mart or Sonic in Champaign, or are those called something else…? Anyhow, there was a ¼ to ½ inch or more of slushy on all the sidewalks. By the time I reached Matt my shoes were good and wet. By the time Matt and I reached our stretch point…

Oh, dear, we took a “what’s water resistant” inventory. Not much, was our conclusion. My wind breaker might have been at some point but I’ve had it for 9 years or so now. My tights? Not really, but I would rather wear wet tights over something that was baggy and wet. Matt’s pants and sweatshirt? Certainly not. But the biggest water absorbers? My socks, of course. My feet were so wet that it almost seemed like we might as well run in the slush, except for the wet suit phenomena. A wet suit, of course, works because it holds a layer of water against your skin that your body then warms up. This now-warm water trapped under the wet suit acts as insulation. It was the same with my socks. They were wet socks, but my feet weren’t really COLD. But with every step in slush, new COLD water was rushing in. I moved that we abandon path when my 8 little toes started to go numb and considered breaking off. No need for that.

So we ran off trail. But it was slushy and squishy and muddy and fun times there too! Which is why I decided to round up to 6 miles today. Because we spent so much time zigzagging around deeper pools of mud and slush, I think we must have added an extra ½ mile on.

Remember what I wrote recently about being bored with the conditions? About how a particular run had been adventurous, but would be more so with changing conditions? About wanting some mud or something?

Never underestimate the power of intention. Because today we had changing conditions AND mud. It started out with rain. Then it stopped raining and it got really windy. Which was actually a nice thing because my windbreaker dried in the wind. And then, get this:

THE SUN CAME OUT. It’s always interesting to me when the sun comes out and I realize, “oh, yeah, sun.” It had been cloudy for so long that I’d forgotten what the sun was like. I’d forgotten that the sun even existed. Of course, it could be that just the other day it was sunny, I’m not sure, but regardless, I had that feeling.

And so I started singing and dancing a little, trying to make up cadences about the sun, trying to remember old Army cadences, settling on “When the Saints Go Marching In” and a made-up one-line song/cadence that goes “hey-heeey, Sun-shine…” Matt was giving me stranger looks than he usually does. I think it was the dancing that really did it, I don’t usually dance that much while we’re running, or maybe it was me saying, “I want to pump…you up!” in a deep voice. Yea, that could have been it. But, I wasn’t bored at all this run! And Matt and I weren’t even talking as much as usual, nor about anything all that insightful like the history of the I-IV-V progression or the source of the dissonance in a V7 chord and tritones and whatnot.

This was a good run.

See? I love running in inclement weather, it gives me a strange and euphoric high. Who needs drugs when you’ve got slurpee in your shoes?