If You Don't Like the Weather, Wait a Minute!

Yesterday, I planned to go running with Team in Training, but my furnace was deader than Michael Vick's chances of being elected president of the American Kennel Association. Since I had promised to do a mission moment before the team run, I drove into Richmond to do that, then came home to try to line up emergency furnace repairs.

By a little after 1PM, I was able to get out for 10.5 miles of training. It was quite cool and very gray. I was cold but soaked in sweat. My nose ran like a broken fire hydrant. Then suddenly, about nine miles into running, the sun came out. I cast a long shadow as the sun beat down upon my back. It felt great.

I arrived back home, still in the sun, and did a five minute cooldown walk. By that time the sun was gone, so I went inside, traded my two soaked shirts and vest for a dry shirt and a fleece, and came back out to stretch. Was that a raindrop? Nope, just my imagination. How about that? Yep - a raindrop. Then another. And another. The sky was now the color of lead, and the wind picked up. I could feel the temperature dropping. I went into the house to finish stretching. I was barely inside when the skies opened up into a downpour. One minute later it was sleeting like crazy. A minute later, it was sleet mixed with snow. A minute later still, it was like a blizzard - heavy snow, the first of the year here in Ole Virginney, blowing sideways. The wind buffeted the house. All this in about a 10-15 minute time span, starting around 3PM. Oh, and did I mention the half dozen thunderclaps, a couple of them so close and so powerful as to shake the whole house? By 3:45 or so the snow had stopped, and by 4:45, the sun was out again.

During all that time, the furnace technician arrived, and the house was becoming warm! My checkbook? Noticeably cooler!