Weather Predictions

Last summer in Dallas was not pleasant for running.  I mean, it's Texas, I know summers are hot here -- it's the trade-off that I am more than happy to make for a mild winter. 

But last summer was horrendous in a record-breaking way.  Looking back at some of my posts, I can almost feel how miserable it was.  First, we had a major streak going of days at 100 or higher, and we broke the streak with a single day in the upper 90s, thereby losing out on that record.  Then, we set our sights on the record for annual days at 100 or higher.  I was writing about how gross and miserable it was.  And then finally, at the very end of August, we had our 70th day at or above 100 degrees, breaking the all-time record.  It was so triumphant.  I was blogging about telling those people who complained about the summer of 1980 to suck it. 

After that summer, we had a surprisingly mild winter.  No snow or ice that I remember, plenty of mornings that just weren't that cold.  I could run in shorts, and even short-sleeves sometimes.  While the winter of 2010-2011, when I was training for Boston, was horribly cold -- I remember a particularly miserable run in the sleet and wind; I labelled that post "mental strength" and for good reason -- it was still one of the toughest and most miserable runs I've ever done.  And that year, there were some big snowfalls and the city shut down for days on end, the roads were sheets of ice, covered in snow.  Everyone stuck home from work for snow days. 

But having such high average temps all winter this past year made me brace for something even worse this summer.  Like if it didn't cool off in January, I had no prayer of anything live-able in August. 

But this morning was downright lovely.  The temp was in the mid-70s at 5:15 when I started running, and there was even a breeze toward the end of the run that almost felt cold!  It's hard to believe that a year ago, our lows weren't even dipping below 80.  A single morning at 79 felt like it had been sent from above.  And this year now, we had both days this past weekend that were live-able, and then today.  I usually count on getting that first cool breeze in mid- to late- September.  It's usually right before the people doing early marathons (like Chicago, Beijing, NY, etc., most of my friends and me) start to taper.  The breeze comes and the mileage drops.  Everything starts feeling so good. 

I can't decide if I should be pessimistic about this morning's loveliness or not.  I mean, maybe it will last and we'll have an awesome rest of August and a gorgeous September.  Or maybe we'll have this one great week, and then the heat-monster will be back and will beat us down even harder because we had a taste of the coolness. 

I think I'll just try to enjoy it and not worry too much about what's to come.  It's inevitable that we'll have more mornings in the 80s.  I'll just try to remember the gift of these few days fondly...