Saturday, September 3, 2011

Running with 4 Lees

Ok, let me start out with a disclaimer, all the people I mention in the story are not actually named Lee.

With that out of the way, let me tell you about my morning run. Tropical Storm Lee is sitting out in the Gulf of Mexico ruining my weekend and dumping buckets of water all over the gulf coast and Louisiana. Fortunately around 6:30 this morning I checked outside and checked the radar and noticed I had a little bit of a window and decided to get in my morning run.

I have never been one of those "hard core" runners who will hit the street through rain, sleet snow or whatever, in fact I am probably more of a "wimpy runner who has to overcome excuses every single day. I have been trying to stay diligent and knew I needed to get today's run in. Today's Schedule called for an easy run lasting 1 hour and 10 minutes. This was to be my longest run to date.

AS I begin running I opted not to take the phone and headphones at all, I would simply judge my pace by my heart rate and how I felt. I did wear my watch to track the time. I started pretty good the roads were wet, and there was a slight drizzle, but the temperature was close to perfect and the traffic was light. Thre were lots of puddles to dodge, I didn't want to get the socks wet too early in the run.

About 2.25 miles into the run I met Lee II. Lee II was an older man (probably late 50s early 60s) who turned in front of me from a side street. He was in the middle of a ten mile run and had already crossed "the bridge" and had gotten soaked.  Since we were both running at a conversational pace Lee II and I  carried on a nice conversation for about a mile. Lee II lives north of the city and has to drive into town for his runs, he actually jokingly called me an a-hole for living in the city Running with Lee II helped push me through a mentally tough part in the middle of my run.

We split and went different directions and I began to make my turnaround to head back to the house. The rain had consistently dripped on me for almost 40 minutes when I caught up with Lee III. Lee II was closer to my age and had reached the point in his run where he had stopped for a walk. As I approached him I shouted ahead that I was passing him on the left, apparently because he was listening to his headphones he was startled by my call out and nearly fell off the sidewalk.

About half a mile later I had started walking for a second to catch my breath when i began to hear foot steps behind me, Lee III had started running again and was catching up. I let him catch up and started running with him. Lee III was close to my age and was getting his warm up in, on the street before his workout at the gym. We came to the turn for Lee III to head off to the gym and it was just me, the road and the rain for a little more than 1.5 miles.

It was less than a quarter mile later when I came upon Lee IV (or maybe Leigh). Lee IV wasn't out for a run, she was out in the rain walking from the local quick stop with a carton of Marlboros. I am not one to judge, but you know you are addicted when you have to get out in a storm to walk to the store to buy your smokes. Lee IV wasn't getting her first smoke of the day in either. I passed her relatively quickly and 20 feet before I caught her i began to smell the distinct odor of stale cigarette smoke. I smelled the odor until about 20 feet past Lee IV as well.

It was when I was only about half a mile from home when Lee I reminded me she was still there. The drizzling droplets became more and more frequent and more fierce. It was not long after I got back into my driveway that the bottom really fell out. I came up about 8 minutes short of my goal, and I came in soaking wet, but I got back ahead of the downpour. I can't complain about a fun adventurous 6 miles


running
Running
Sep 03, 2011  ::  6:48 AM - 7:50 AM
Distance
6.02
mi
Duration
1:02:00
h : m : s
Avg. Pace
10:18
min/mi
Avg. Speed
5.83
mph
Burned
28
calories
Climb
0
ft




No comments:

Post a Comment