Notes
Crazy run. Crazy crazy run.
Got up early to run before it got too hot. It was still muggy and hot when I started. Legs felt bad too. Eventually I opened up and from about 40min until about 1:15 I felt pretty good and was clicking off solid miles. Stopped a handful of times at drinking fountains to take a bath. Felt really rejuvenated each time. Legs started really disliking me at about 1:20. My right toe was bugging me from about 45min onward though. I guess I got some gravel in my shoe and it was creating a blister right below the toe. I would alternate between curling my toe in to avoid the rubbing and letting it rest normal while it rubbed. I managed the damage well enough that I didn't get too bad of a blister, although the blood on my shoe begs to differ, and that I didn't totally screw up my foot/achilles by running with curled toes for 10miles.
I've mentioned this before but I'll say it again; the thing that makes going out and back on the prairie path great and awful at the same time for long runs is the fact that it's a gradual but consistent drop in elevation from west to east. So it's inevitable that you'll get rolling on the way out and then have the last few miles feel awful. That was the case today. Thankfully, clouds rolled in really quick and I got excited about the possibility of a refreshing rain giving me a boost for the last few miles of my run. Then the clouds continued rolling in and it got super dark.
This is the sequence of events from when it got super dark (under the canopy of trees, it felt like night time) onward for the next 10minutes: It started to drizzle. My body found the rain delicious. About 400m after it started drizzling, the wind picked up in a hurry and it started POURING. Then the wind picked up and a strange chill filled the air. The wind was so strong it was covering my body with dust and stray tree leaves like bugs cover your chest after a hard bike ride. I couldn't look up with my eyes open it was so bad. I heard a loud rumble off to the side. It wasn't thunder. It was a huge dumpster getting blown by a (60mph?) gust of wind across a parking lot. I saw construction signs getting blown across the street. The rain turned to hail. I had to cover my eyes in order to run forward (into the crazy wind). Then the lightning started and I decided to get off of the path and onto Pennsylvania Ave in Glen Ellyn. I saw large branches that had fallen down all over the place. I couldn't see anything straight ahead though. Thankfully the hail gave away to a good ol' fashioned thunderstorm. Unfortunately that meant that the lightning frequency and proximity increased. I tried to pick it up to get home as fast as I could, but that's not something my body wanted to do 1:45 into this run. I have some friends who live along this road and I was planning on stopping into their place (even though I was wearing nothing but short shorts and shoes) but a guy drove by about 400m before I got there and offered me a ride. His name was Josiah and he was out looking for his wife who had gone running. A car next to his in the parking lot of his apt got smashed by a branch apparently. Crazy. I was glad that his wife called him while we were still driving to confirm that she had made it home. Although I would have loved to have finish the full 2hours I was happy to 1) survive and 2) still get a nice long run in.