This morning at about 5 AM Pacific, I posted the following worry on Facebook :

OK, so water, a bit of black coffee, water. A bit of salt…I should be fine out there, right? I mean, I used to run in this kind of weather in Texas, in Basic, when I was in my 20s…and I only had heat stroke twice…at least we don’t have huge cockroaches like they do in Texas. Yeah, that’s how my mind is thinking this morning. You’re welcome.

It generated lots of comments from other runners, but the kick-self-out-the-door comment was this one:

Oh…and lightning was striking within a mile of us as well. Go.

Some observations from my not-so-fast jaunt for about 30 minutes of sweat were:

I didn’t see any lightning, but I did get out there. The air was thick and still. And already hot. We don’t usually get high humidity in my part of town, but now we evidently do. I didn’t get any rain, but I wanted some. I actually like running in the rain. Perhaps I’m odd that way.

Not a lot of people on the road, outside or in vehicles. I attribute some of that to the early hour. The sun dawned right before I got out there.

There were a very few joggers outside. Most moving slowly, like me, as if running through a sauna.

I ran by a house with a large pile of what I thought was discarded furniture in front of it. Turns out it was the entire HVAC, pipes and all, extracted from the house and on the street. I pity whoever did that work over the weekend. But hopefully the homeowners got a working system in.

No children, except one man pushing a running baby carriage. 

Anyone who was out there got a bit of respect from me. These are the serious, the fanatics, the “I can’t go a day without running” people. Surprisingly, I’ve become one of them. You figure it out. You hydrate. You salt up. And you #KeepOnRunnin

Stay cool out there, friends.