AM - 7 miles easy on a warm humid summer morning. I had expected to do a run like this last evening after returning from Gainesville, but I was just too beat to head out after a few hours of driving. Will get a longer run in later today.
PM - exactly 15.5 miles this evening on what started out as a hot late afternoon run. I noticed what appeared to be an isolated storm in the east, but it looked like it was about rained out and fading. I headed south and when I looked over again to the east, I noticed the storm had seriously rebuilt and was getting very dark and moving my direction. Good, I thought, a nice shower will cool me off near the end of my long run. As I made my way west through Dunedin past the Toronto Blue Jays Spring Training stadium and headed back north on the Pinellas Trail, the storm was nearly upon me and it grew very dark and extremely windy - and by the time I reached the old Hoods orange juice plant, I became very concerned about being hit lightning or by flying debris. I made it almost to Curlew (about 3.5 miles from home) when the lightning strikes were so fast and so close, I barely had time to count before the thunder came. I dashed across traffic to a old bank building for shelter from the lightning. Then I began to worry that my wife would be worried about me - and perhaps drive out looking for me. No pay-phones around and electricity disabling the local businesses with what I thought was the worst overwith - I decided to make my way back home before she would go out looking for me. So my long run turned into a fast finish - though I did not have a watch on it, I probably ran at 10k pace for the last few miles or better.
Sure enough, when I arrived at home I found that she had gone out to search for me. Of course she knew not where I ran, and was out driving in unsafe conditions. Yikes. Delaney called her back home immediately and she arrived safely home thereafter. She informed me of reports of a tornado near where I had been running.
Anyway, that was my adventure for the week.
Thanks to my virtual training partner Bam for motivating me to get my last few miles in this week. | 