Lightning, thunder and dogs, oh my!

Air Force Training Week 7

Monday- Spinning class
Tuesday- Run 4.2 in 36 minutes- awesome running weather
Wednesday-7 miles in 60 minutes (new step in mid week runs- 7 miles instead of 6 like the last 3 weeks)
Thursday- Spinning
Friday- off
Saturday- 14 miles with the  Up and Running running group.

So my first big run past 13.1 miles since 2001...was interesting.

storm damage from last year to our house , July 2011

We had a huge wind storm on Friday that affected a ton of people in Ohio, well, everywhere it seems.  Anyways,  it was the first time that we haven't lost power in a major storm.  I totally feel for everyone who has lost power since we've had a heat wave over the last week.  I've been there- last year in fact.  We lost power for a week, lost a car, roof, siding, fence and a huge tree.  I don't think we have much left that can fall in our yard.  So, for once, we were ok.  Yay for us!

Anyways, I got up at 5 am on Saturday to go to Up and Running to run our 14 miler.  I checked the weather since it was going to be super hot, and wanted to have an idea of what to expect. There is a huge red cell of rain to our west and was going to be hitting around 6 am.  What to do? Do we run in it? Wait it out? I knew it was going to be getting pretty hot if we waited another hour? Called my running partner- she was already in Centerville and the power was out.  Hmmm.  Ok- off I go, since Carrie was already close to the store.  Guess we better training in this stuff, since it might be that way race day.

We show up and it was dark, clouds were menacing and the wind was cold and blustery.   We headed out on the first 6 mile loop.  About a 1/2 mile in the heavens open, huge heavy drops that pelted us.  Carrie wanted to stop and I would have but since this was the first time with this group, I didn't want to get lost, so we kept going.  Lightning and thunder  were in the now moving in. Yuck- not what I wanted  but what do we do?  So we kept on running...  Finished the 6.2 mile loop in 57 mins.  By the end, the rain had stopped.  Thank goodness.

Here's a link to running in storms- we totally failed on taking the advice
Running during storms

So we had 8 more miles to finish.  We headed out with a smaller group that consisted of the 2 group leaders who were running 22 miles that morning.  We ran to one of their houses about 2 miles from the store to use her bathroom, since (I'm assuming) the store was closed (no power).  Then we wondered around Kettering for the next 6 miles.  I'd paused my Garmin at some point so my overall mileage was messed up for the rest of the run.

Exactly what I saw coming up behind us.

At one point, a ferocious German Shepard came out of someone's back yard and about bit the backside off of one the group.  I turned around and saw teeth and froze.  (I was taught by UPS back in college to never run from a dog since they will always beat you).  Anyways, pushed by the woman who was literally trying to save her ass, we moved quickly enough and must have been out of his yard so he backed down.  Adrenaline works way better than a Cliff Shot BTW. :-)  Finished the rest of the run w/o incident.  Legs felt tired but not hurt, foot felt great (except for waterlogged toes!)  Finished the 8 miles in 1hr 20 mins.



Have you got caught on a run when the weather has gotten bad? What did you do?

Anyone been chased by a dog or bitten?  

What about getting lost with a new running group?