After & Before

6 miles. To do a run with Daniel before his BQ2 race was my intent. He shouldn’t have to go for these last few easy runs alone.

We met at Sandhill Crane Park a few moments before 6 am. It was in the mid 60s and all dark. Sometimes the park lights are on until sunrise. Maybe the timer needs to be reset, it wasn’t working today.

We thought we’d run at an 8:30 pace for the out & back route. Running the first few miles, we saw the trail wasn’t wet and thee were no puddles leftover from the rain last night. Shortly after beginning we saw flashes of lightning to the west and a few sprinkles in our lights. It didn’t rain on us, but as we came closer to the large dam-like structure that we pass at 2.75 miles, we heard thunder. We did a short stop at the 3 mile mark, then ran back. Sunrise wasn’t far off, we saw dark clouds right above us and now south and to the east. A few more rumbles of thunder and we began running on what was now a wet trail. What appeared to be flat when lit by a headlamp and LED light was now two slight tire tracks with water in them.

It had rained significantly south of us while we were at the top turnaround point of our run. And when we came back, it was already through the area and past us to the east. We got some white splashed water and dirt on us from the trail, but never had the rain. We ran below 8 min mile paces to get back to the parking lot.

Once done, we went to the Brooklyn Bagel shop for coffee. We saw swirls of clouds but didn’t get rained on at all. A fortunate day to get an easy 6 miles done!

-dm