So I started out for my sixteen-mile run today.  Did the three mile loop, and all was well.  Decided to run the nine mile loop backwards; just to see if it still felt like it was all uphill going the other way.  Oddly enough, it didn’t.

     Well, I was doing pretty good despite the humidity.  I knew I wasn’t going to feel good….but I was going to make it.

     Long about mile ten, it started to thunderstorm.

     I thought “OK, I can still make it.  It won’t be fun….but I can do this.”

     I met another runner about the time it became a deluge, and she smiled at me ruefully.

     “Remember!”  I shouted to her over the rumbling of the thunder, “Running is fun!“

     She laughed and said, “Yes, isn't this fun?“

     Then about mile eleven, the hail started.

     I thought “Screw this”.

     I mean, thunder, lightning and intermittent ankle-deep run-off is one thing. Well, three things actually, but hail is a deal breaker with the whole being-outside-unprotected-thing.

     I jogged the rest of the way home, and the hail stopped, but I didn’t want to risk being a mile and a half from home when it started up again, so I went back to the house.

     When I got home, I found that Rocky was worried, as he got into the truck, and drove all over hell looking for me.  What a sweetie.

     And to be fair, he has reason to suspect, when athletics are involved, that I might not have the sense to come in out of the rain.

     So I’m disappointed.  It would be nice to go into this race knowing I had already done more than it was going to require of me…but I guess I’ll have to just do it without that feeling.