It’s Only Water And Air

This morning I got up at 7am as usual and immediately did my Tuesday morning exercise routine. I was expecting to hear rain lashing against the windows and wind howling around the house (as per forecast) but as I completed the routine I realised that there was no sound from outside and, in fact, the morning was remarkably still and dry. The thought immediately struck me that I should make the most of the better-than-expected weather and go out for a short run, even though my plan was to run when I got home from work. It seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, what with high wind and heavy showers forecast for later and, indeed, most of tomorrow. I got as far as starting to look out my running kit but then made the mistake of looking out of a window at the front of the house towards the south-west – the direction the weather almost always approaches us from. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. The sky was a solid dark grey colour and appeared to be fit to burst. I didn’t like the look of it at all and made an almost instant coward’s decision to ditch the idea of a run and go and have breakfast instead. This decision seemed to be a wise one as the sound of rain hitting the window began almost immediately.

But that rain really didn’t amount to much and only 5-10 minutes later the skies had lightened. I found myself instantly regretting my decision to take advantage of the unexpected weather window and, shortly afterwards, I trudged off to work in the dry, not too cold and with hardly a drop of rain falling. I was disappointed, and rapidly convinced myself that I had made a bad decision, that the weather would obviously be horrible later on AND tomorrow which would mean I probably wouldn’t run on either day which would then make it really hard for me to hit 25 miles this week (my informal target) since I would only run about 5 miles on Thursday night (hopefully), probably run nothing on Friday (I rarely run on Fridays), maybe run 14 or so miles on Saturday (because at the moment I can’t really run more) and then almost definitely run nothing on Sunday (there really is horrible weather forecast for Sunday at the moment)… you probably get the idea! It was disappointing and annoying – I had made the wrong decision just because of a little bit of rain and now my new running target was in tatters.

As it turns out, at the moment (it is now 4:20pm and I will head home from work at about 5pm) the sky, at least that part of it that I can see from my office window, is mostly clear. There is a layer of cloud on the eastern horizon but it doesn’t look threatening. And whilst it probably IS windier out there than it seems in here, it does feel like the 40+ mile per hour winds that were forecast haven’t come out to play. So, unless there is a nasty shock lurking out to the west (which I can’t see at the moment) or a rapid change in conditions, I ought to be able to get home and get out for a few miles without too much trauma.

That ‘wrong’ decision that I made and which disappointed me so much this morning might just turn out to have been a perfectly good decision after all.

On the other hand, I’ve just looked out again and the sky is now filled with heavy grey clouds and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it rains soon. Decisions, decisions. I suppose that my experience this morning really ought to have taught me that it is better, and simpler, to just go out and run and not give a damn about a bit of rain or a bit of wind. After all, it’s only water and air.