Playing with lightning

I got up this morning, looked at the weather, and saw that it was a balmy 78F with 90% humidity with a dew point somewhere in the 70s (I forget what exactly).  Then I realized that I actually had zero interest in running during this weather so I checked to see what the evening forecast was.  Accuweather informed me that there was a chance of some scattered thunderstorms.  Now if you live in Florida, you know that the forecast from May - November is, essentially, "Daytime high of 90F with a chance of some scattered thunderstorms in the late afternoon."  So it was hard to pay much attention to it.  I decided to risk it over enduring a 5-mile run with hills in while encountering the ick threshold.

Then, as I was chatting with my friend Sib around 3:30PM, I noticed that not only had the sky grown dark, but that there was also thunder.  This did not bode well, in my view.  I grew concerned that maybe there was going to be a thunderstorm of some duration.  Checking the radar (including Bay News 9's Klystron, the most powerful weather radar in the world), I saw a large wall of storms.  I hoped that it would clear for around 6pm.  At 5pm, there was a severe weather alert issued for strong storms that could include lightning, hail, and other stuff that maybe you wouldn't want to run in.

I started to feel like I had tempted fate one time too many.  It was going to have to be the treadmill or risk being hit by lightning.  As you probably already noticed, the treadmill is not my favorite solution.  In fact, while chatting with Sib, she commented that when I talked about the treadmill, I made it sound like torture.  And sometimes, it can feel like torture.  Not to mention that 5 miles is a long time to spend on one when you are slow like me.  Plus there is no guarantee that the temperature in the running room won't be crazy high like last time.

I kept a very close eye on the various radars and noticed that around 6pm, things were looking much better.  So I decided to risk it.  Here are a few pictures that I took right before the run:

From the car on the way to the golf course neighborhood.  At this point, I was having second thoughts.

One thing that Florida is good for: lengthy stretches of flat so that you can see just how far the storm extends.

I took this one right after parking my car at the rec center (that there is the rec center in the middle ground).  By this point, I was having tenth thoughts about going.

I planned my route so that at no time was I too far from some kind of shelter, whether that be a rec center (there are two), school (there were several), or some kind of church with generous overhang (there were two, but they were kind of too close to each other to be practical).  That way, if there was going to be lightning, I would be ready.  However, I hit it lucky because all of that scary looking weather?  It was going away.  And it actually left some pretty sweet conditions.  The temperature was 76F.  This is considerably better when it is overcast than it would have been this morning.  In fact, I daresay that it was downright pleasant.

There was one concession that I made.  I decided not to run with my phone in case of downpour.  Unlike the last time I did this, when it was a timed run (1 hour), I was supposed to complete five miles with hills today.  So I drew on the resource of Map My Run,  which lets you map your run, as you likely surmised.   This was a new website for me.  I can certainly see how it is a useful one since you can just click and create your route.  Much better than the old days when I used to painstakingly plan my maps using Mapquest and entering every single intersection to get the distance (remember Mapquest?).  With Map My Run, you just click and it shows you how far your route is.  It's a very commercialized site, which I could have done without, but it did accomplish the main task.  I wasn't very adept at using it, but I was in a hurry and trying to get out as fast as I could before some massive storm cropped up.  With some practice, I'm sure I would find it very helpful for these scenarios.

And I actually could run!  In fact, I think that my time was maybe not awful, even by normal standards.  As I finished up my run, the sun was setting and the sky -- which was no longer scary and terrifying -- produced some pretty nice views:

The 'after' picture from the rec center

What amazes me is the range of colors.  All of these pictures were taken within 15 minutes of each other.

This is the far side of a baseball field near one of the schools.  When I ran past it, there was the scary grey sky.  Quite a contrast within an hour!

Still in the golf course neighborhood.

There was even a rainbow that could be seen from the rec center parking lot!

Driving back home.

This is actually taken from my home, but I thought that it was pretty awesome and wanted to share.  That's looking out toward the Little Pond.

And the best part about today's run: I did not get struck down by lightning.  Win!