No, that is not a misspelling or a homophonic grammatical error.
I originally was going to title this rant TO RUN OR NOT TO RUN, but that is NOT the question. I am going to run, come hell or high water, and with the weather we’ve had, it appears to be high water. I call my insistence on running dedication. My wife calls it obsession. There is a fine line between the two.
The weather in Altoona POM Wonderful: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, PA has been wet. Very wet. Even the farmers are complaining.
It’s not that I can’t run in the rain. I have done so. In fact, weather is usually not a factor in whether I run or not. I have run in the rain at 35 degrees. I prefer rain when the temps are above 70–in fact, sometimes a little rain is preferrable to keep one cool. I have run in wind chills below zero. I have run in snowstorms. I have run on icy mornings, and I once fell because of that and boogered up my ankle for six weeks. That is the only time I have ever regretted not using the dreadmill treadmill.
But . . . and there’s always a but. I have a hang-up when it comes to starting out in the pouring rain. If I am already out running and the sky decides to open up and drop buckets on me, I just keep on running. I figure by the time I return home I will be soaked anyway, so I may as well finish my run. But to start out into a downpour in dry clothes, that is a different situation. It is a mental thing, but I can’t seem to shake it.
As a result, my last two runs have been late at night–late for me that is. Eight o’clock as the sun is going down. The problem is I am generally an early or mid day runner. At eight o’clock, it has been only two hours since I ate the biggest meal of the day. This is almost as regrettable as the icy morning.
Thanks to these late runs after dinner, I have had the opportunity to enjoy my dinner a second time. A third time. The more I run, the more stuff sloshes around and the more I burp. My meal is not as good the second time around. It reminds me of The Bucket List when Jack Nicholson dines on catered food — “the best in L.A.”, before he has his chemo treatment. After he spends the night in the bathroom, his roommate, Morgan Freeman quips, “ain’t the best in L.A. anymore.”
But these are the things that dedicated runners have to put up with. A runners forum recently had a thread about “You Know You’re a Runner When . . .” Some of the answers include:
. . . You obsessively track the weather (especially in fickle April in NY) to plan your outdoor runs [I am not alone!]
. . . You know you are a runner when you think that it’s acceptable to sacrifice one of your toenails for a PR. [PR is personal record and for the record, I have three toenails in various stages of falling off, bleeding, or growing in weird.]
. . . You listen to the radio and gage the appeal of a song based on whether or not you’d run to it. [Every song on my ipod was picked for this reason.]
. . . In spite of constant spousal pleas, the drying rack never gets taken down as it always has running shorts, tech shirts and socks in various stages of drying. [My wife hates the running clothes hanging in the bathroom!]
. . . when your socks are permanently stained from bleeding toes [what’s with the toes again!]
. . . the family trip to the Grand Canyon becomes a logistical nightmare as you try to figure how to do a Rim-to-Rim run. [My wife hates it when I run on vacation!]
But you get the idea.
If the weather doesn’t improve, I’m going to have to get some more TUMS. Or eat less.
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