On Easter here in Seattle, it rained. Buckets. My brother and I are six weeks out from the Vancouver Marathon, and he was in Hawaii running in heat and wind, and the calendar said today was 12 miles, relatively easy compared to the 19 from last week. But the rain came down, and I watched the window and looked at the weather page and wondered if maybe I should try again tomorrow. After all, I ran 10 miles on Friday, home from Bellevue across the I-90 bridge.
Eventually, I sighed, geared up and headed out along Lake Washington Boulevard, out toward Seward Park. After half a mile I was soaked. Hands, feet, head. It's like jumping into a cold pool though, once you're in, you're in, and wet as I was, I was in -- six miles out, six back, into the wind on the way out, wind at my back for the trip home. I have data rich runs -- heart rate, distance, time, elevation, pace, you name it, my watch can deliver it. I tend to focus on time, distance and heart rate, with an emphasis on mile splits. The goal for Vancouver is 3:30, which would be an 8:00 minute pace and would be my fastest marathon (3:43 and 3:47, the first in 1986, the second in 1995). So my runs are supposed to be just a bit under that pace, whether it's raining or not. The idea that I'll run a faster marathon at 45 than I did at 25 is counterintuitive a bit, but I was sort of stupid in my running then, so I am hoping that more brain capacity will make up for the whips and scorns of time....May 4 will tell the tale.
The rain really picked up at about 4.5 miles and Bellevue across the water vanished into mist. Just about then, I turned down the path and hit the section that goes right next to the water -- nothing between me and the lake but about a two foot drop. The surface of the lake was dimpled by the impact of each drop, and the gray of the pavement and the gray of the water and the gray of the horizon blended together in a way that made the earth and sky seem the same. That view, that's why I run -- the surprise of seeing something familiar made new again.