A Cold Commute

Over the past few years, I have enjoyed the challenge of ultra-marathon trail running. While the actual event is marvelous, it requires long hours of lonely training. Over the past few months, I have tried to make Tuesday my traditional 'Run to Work Day.' This past Tuesday was no different and when I woke up I noted that my phone said it would rain around 8 AM but seeing how it was 4 AM I figured I was good to go.  For some strange reason, my phone battery had gone from 85% the night before to 40% but I figured I would make it to work with plenty of battery to spare... 

Well, about  4 miles into my run, my phone battery decided to give up and my phone went dead. At that same moment, the rain started to come down in sheets. I was instantly soaked and chilled in spite of my rain shell. 

1.5 miles later there was a great flash followed by thunder as the storm kicked it up a notch. Little did I know it, the storm center was over our house and the lightning and thunder were so intense that it put Jari in a panic. She went downstairs hoping to see my car gone to indicate that I had driven rather than run to work. Seeing my car in the driveway, her anxiety increased with each flash of lightning. We share locations on google maps so she quickly checked the map to see where I was: 3 miles West (base is north of our house) and I had not moved for 10 minutes. 

She woke Charlotte up to tell her she was going to look for me and she drove out to the location on the map where my phone had died. As the rain and hail crashed down she rolled down the windows and shouted for me. Suddenly, my location moved from 300 feet off the tree and bush-laden hill to 250 feet. 'Oh my goodness! Fred is injured and is trying to get to me!' she thought. She yelled again but not being able to see me or find me after looking she texted my coworker and went home. She tried to calm herself knowing that the Google Maps location share can be odd at times and the location made no sense to her. 

(the leftover hail at the end of the day) 

By this time I was running the old-fashioned way - using my knowledge of which villages I needed to hit to get to the base and followed the road signs. The lightning continued to flash and thunder crash. I was soaked and in spite of changing out my gloves to a second pair I started to worry about making it to work - I still had 1+ hours to go and needed to be there in 1.5 hours for a meeting. I considered calling for a ride, but then I thought, 'oh yeah, my phone is dead.' The next thought followed logically 'This sucks, What in the world am I doing out here?' 

In my moment of self-pity I considered hunkering down but just then a German zoomed by on his electric bike making me think that if he could make it without getting hit by lightning, so could I. 

I finally made it to the back gate of the base and just as I passed through I felt a  pull in my right calf. 'Great! Now I have a strained calf, I am cold, I am tired, I am angry, and I am going to miss my own meeting!' I thought. There was nothing else to do but jog the rest the way as fast as my leg would allow. 

I made it. I plugged in my phone which would not charge because it was wet - logged on to my computer and sent Jari an email letting her know what had happened. Several people then came to ask me if I had made it and that Andrew (my coworker who Jari had texted) was asking about me. 

I am sorry for the stress I put on Jari that morning. I suppose the silver lining to this experience was that it intensified my respect for mother nature and the need for good planning and gear. I think that having a spare battery cant be a bad idea either :)