My Seattle Plan

As you know, I'll be in the Emerald City this week. And as you know, I have to run a long ways on Sunday. As in 18 miles. As in three miles longer (okay, 2.62 to be precise) than my previous longest run ever.

Am I worried? Kind of, yeah. The distance alone intimidates me, but having to run it in a city I've never been to, in a state I've never been to, well, that kind of compounds the uncertainty. But what most worries me is not the locale but rather the weather.

I've been following the weather for the last week or so and it's been fairly consistent: lows in the low 30s, highs in the upper 40s and rain.

Sunday's forecast calls for rain with a 40 percent of precipitation. In fact, the forecast says showers are possible. Now, I don't know what the rain is like in Seattle, if it's a steady drizzle or steady downpour or what. I'm hoping that it will be off and on, so that at least during part of my run I won't be running in a straight downpour.

Actually, I hope the skies clear up on Sunday morning but I know if I hope that I will only be disappointed if and when I run through the rain. It'll be discouraging.

With rain of course comes the chance of being drenched from head to toe. Not that I don't necessarily mind that but it will change things up for me. For instance, I'm not quite sure what to wear. And I'm not quite sure what not to wear. Should I take my iPod and The Garmin, for instance? People in Seattle run all the time and from what I've been reading of the blogs I've been paying close attention to this week, runners there seem to be able to manage their electric equipment just fine in the cold and rain.

Actually, one blogger suggested the following for me: "for the cold... ear covers, gloves, tights and layers. In the rain you need moisture wicking fabric and a hat."

I don't have ear covers per se but I have a beanie, and I'm going to take it with me. I have gloves and layers, but no tights. Hmmm... I wonder if Yvie will let me wear some of her tights... oh, not those kind of tights. I don't have any moisture-wicking fabric but I do have a hat. Lots of hats. I just need to find the right kind. Although, a beanie and a hat? Well, I guess it's for the best. I suppose I could wear a small hat under a beanie and then that wouldn't look too strange.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out. I've thought about a couple of things for the run. I have to fuel up of course and my hydration belt will make things easier. I've got plenty of Gu packets to hold me over. I just wonder if the bottles will be able to hold me over. I've thought about running past a convenience store or something and stopping to rest and refuel but we'll see.

Still, no matter how I picture it, I keep going back to the rain. The dreaded rain. Why must it rain? It's probably not going to be as bad as I think it will be, but still... I imagine it being pretty bad. Maybe it's the short story I read in high school, Ray Bradbury's The Long Rain. You ever read it?

Well, here's the first paragraph of the short story:

"The rain continued. It was a hard rain, a perpetual rain, a sweating and steaming rain; it was a mizzle, a downpour, a fountain, a whipping at the eyes, an undertow at the ankles; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains. It came by the pound and the ton, it hacked at the jungle and cut the trees like scissors and shaved the grass and tunneled the soil and molted the bushes. It shrank men's hands into the hands of wrinkled apes; it rained a solid glassy rain, and it never stopped."

That's kind of what I picture Sunday's rain to be like. It probably won't be that bad, but I have an image similar to that in my head.

I suppose that's one way to look at it, make it seem like the worst thing ever and then when it doesn't bottom out like you thought, it won't seem so bad.

But as long as I get in my 18 miles (!) I should be fine. Even if my hands look like wrinkled ape hands.