I think I’ve discovered a meteorological anomaly that bears some attention.  Here’s the thing: every single ultra I’ve run, and I mean every single one, has included rain.  Sometimes there is hail, but always rain.

Take last night’s 50K for example.  The skies were overcast, but the people who do clouds and pressure systems and the like were saying things like, “very small chance of rain until after midnight”, and “light sprinkles, but really nothing until 1 am or so”.   And so on, and so on.  Of course, all of these people have to take a special course in weather school on off-the-cuff-because-I’ve-got-no-freaking-idea forecasting, which, combined with the 3 semester hour course on watch-me-lie-through-my-teeth-and-hope-you’re-impressed-by-my-hair means that I should have known.  And, in a way, I did.  I brought along a rain shell, and wore it over a long sleeve running shirt and a short sleeved running shirt.

I parked the truck at 7:15 (that’s 1915 for all you eschewers of confusion out there), to a nice 55 degrees, with slight humidity.  I got out, gathered my stuff, ate a few potato chips (because really, everyone has to have at least one reason why they do this stuff), tightened up my new XT Wings, turned to the trail, and took three steps.  Step four was accompanied my a light and delicate misting.  Steps 6, 7, and 8 saw a little sprinkle.  Steps 10 on – and I mean until the very moment I stopped running 7 freaking hours later – it rained.

So, I’m thinking that I may spend the summer in Africa (or these days in the Southeastern US) offering local officials the opportunity to have me – for a small honorarium – run an ultra in their neck of the woods.  I anticipate that I can – probably all by myself – restore fast diminishing water tables and probably lead a worldwide resurgence in basic agriculture.

By the time I finished – at about 2 this morning – whatever pretenses my rain shell had had in keeping me dry were long gone.  The temperature had plunged, my hands no longer worked, and when Deb arrived to pick me up – in her PJs no less – the mug of hot chocolate she brought made the whole run totally worth it.

So…late May?  Tom’s Run?  Imagine the storms we had last year just before the start, then move them back about 40 hours.  Plan to bring water wings, and maybe a kayak.

Sometimes things aren’t the way they ought to be.  I ought to have had a more enjoyable time on Saturday.  I ought to have been better at managing my pace.  I ought to have not felt like I wanted to throw-up for 12 miles.  Instead, I spent an ungodly amount of time not having fun.

But…sometimes that’s just how things are.

I got 20 miles in on a pretty nice course.  There was mud, but not really as much as I’d hoped/expected.  As always the people were great, the volunteers extraordinary, and the scenery quite pleasant.

I discovered on Monday that the Seneca Creek-Greenway Trail Marathon that I’d signed up for was – in fact – this Saturday.

We’ve had some recent inches of snow, but today the temp is in the 40s and tomorrow into the high 50s.  There will be lots of mud, lots of water on the trails.  The creeks will be flooded; there will probably be some swimming involved.  In otherwords, it is a perfect run for me.

On the downside, it is day after tomorrow.  However, the run fits in pretty well with my training program for Tom’s Run; it’s perhaps a week ahead of where I’d like it, and I would prefer if there were no cutoffs on Saturday.  All in all though, presuming everything works the way it ought, it should be a nice check point in my preparations for May.

Stand by for a race report.