roller coaster run

When I pulled back up to the house after taking my daughter to school this morning the weather was so nasty, but I decided to go ahead and get ready for a run. I knew I needed one. The opportunity presented itself. I knew I needed to take advantage of it. But I wasn’t going to like it! The temperature was in the mid 40’s and raining. I don’t mind one element, but when you start throwing multiple elements together at me, I’m just not a fan. Well as I was getting ready to head out the door I read a tweet from Hal Higdon “@higdonmarathon: It is the start of another week, and it is raining. And I must go out in the rain and get wet. Because runners do that.” This just made my morning. Not sure if it was knowing that I wasn’t the only person in the world crazy enough to go running in the rain this morning. Or if it was just the reaffirmation that yea I’m a runner. I think it was probably the second thing. Stepped outside and yup it was still raining, so I tucked runkeeper inside my shorts and I took off. The first .25 mile was wonderful; I left the house like a bullet out of a gun. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing I did all morning, but I did it. Shortly after that my shins started feeling extremely tight. After my first mile I had to stop, and stretch, and just let my shins cool down. The next 2 miles were about the same. Run a little, stretch a little. I was trying to figure out what was going on. Was it the weather? I had run in this before. Was it lack of warming up? I walked my daughter into school, just as I did all the time to get the blood moving. What could it be? I am going to chalk it up to sprinting hills during my run Friday night for lack of a better explanation. Luckily after about 35 minutes I was finally able to settle into a good run, and was able to enjoy the beautiful weather ;)  It feels good to be a runner. I just know all the people passing me on their way to work thought, "man I wish that was me out there running this morning". Well that's what they were saying in my mind.