Running In The Rain

   A couple of days ago, I was inside a bowling alley, playing pool with someone from work. It had been pretty warm so when I parked I left the windows in my car down just a touch.

What I was trying to avoid...

   As luck would have it, while we were in the window-less alley, the weather changed dramatically and suddenly there was a pounding rainstorm. It was only the sound of the downpour on the roof that alerted me. I immediately took off running so that I could roll my windows up. More importantly, I didn't sit there and try and figure out whether I should run or not or, if I did, just how much I should run. I just ran. I didn't even start with a slow jog---right from the start it was all hell-bent-for-leather.
   AND IT FELT WONDERFUL!
   I'm not sure whether it was the adrenaline or not, but there was no pain in my heel either during or afterwards. After I got home, the heel still felt fine. My plan had been to go for a 5k walk after work but, with my heel feeling so good, I decided to try and work a bit of a run into it. And I do mean a bit of a run---all I was prepared to do was run for half a k. I did this and after all was said and done the heel still felt fine.
   It's kind of hard to describe how good this made me feel. At no time in the past three months have I put this much stress on the foot and not regretted it almost immediately.
   Yesterday morning (the big test), the heel was still good to go. Last night, I essentially repeated my routine from the day before and so far so good, no real pain.
   The part I enjoyed the most about my mad dash through the rain yesterday was the mindless speed of it. It had been ages since I had been on a regular training run but it had been even longer since I'd run fast anywhere. The last time I'd sprinted was back in mid-January when my ball hockey team (I am a Canadian) finished its playoff run.
   I am one of those guys who would almost rather run fast than run far. Until I got hooked on it, I used to generally

Favourite superhero--wonder why?

think of distance running as being a bit of a time-consuming bore. Back in late October of last year, I wrote a blog post here entitled "Fast/Slow", wherein I describe my at-odds feeling with distance running versus sprinting. The gist of it was that distance running was a little more accessible and a little more mainstream at the same time and that this was its draw to me.
   I still enjoy running fast, though. I am a sixty-year-old man who plays in a ball hockey league with twenty-and thirty-somethings and those young kids don't blow me out of the water by any means. I have never been the slowest man on any team I've played for, either. One of the things that appeals to me about running sprints is that there's not a lot of strategy to it. Okay, I'm sure that last statement probably evoked howls of protest from anyone who actually sprints competitively but my point is that, when you sprint, you run for a very brief time and you don't pace yourself or worry about hydration or get married to your Garmin. You simply run as fast as you can.
   This is almost what I did a couple of days ago. In the rain. Feeling the joy of it.