celebration

Caught myself in one of life’s precious moments earlier today. I didn’t start my run until about 11:00am, which of course meant it was a wonderful sauna outside. 88 degrees, 65 percent humidity. I struggled thru 6 miles and just allowed myself to walk quite a bit after running the first 2. My head felt so hot, my heart was beating rapidly, and yet my pace was slooooow. Just a typical day of running in the south, eh? Ok…so…I ran thru the Celebration, Florida neighborhood where seriously everything looks so perfect….perfect grass, perfect sidewalks, everything so clean and crisp. A very quiet, cute community about 12 miles from Disney.
About 30 minutes into run, I was able to stop in a a building and soak my bandana in cold water and refill my water bottle. I wrapped the cold, wet bandana around my neck and proceeded with the run. Er…run..walk…run…walk…
Whole body was feeling some fatigue after yesterday’s run plus the 7 (fun) hours of walking around Magic Kingdom! Ok….so…I finished up the 6 miles and went straight to the pool to meet up with my pals who were exercising their option for pool time instead of run time. I rinsed off at the cold outdoor pool shower and then hopped in to join them. After probably 15 minutes, we saw some infamous Southern rain clouds coming in and made our move out of pool. They had brought their towels, of course, but since I had come from running, I did not. I decided to just go ahead and walk back to condo in the rain. What did it matter, I was all wet anyways? As I began walking, the drops and speed of rain became more intense and we were in full on thunderstorm. I was outside of the pool gate area and stopped and waited for my friends to see me. I did one of my “open arms” poses where I held my arms open as wide as I could and tilted my head back. The large, warm Florida drops washed over me, poured down over my head, over my glasses and all over my body! I felt like I didn’t have a care in the world. I kept walking back to condo and then started running barefoot, in the middle of the street with the rain falling all around. I was smiling big. This is life, baby! Tasting life…