The Waiting is the Hardest Part

AM: 20 mins. (2.5 miles)
PM: Rain...thunder...lightning

Wow, what a stressful day. Tonight was supposed to be our 5k prelim, but Mother Nature had other plans. Despite a morning and early afternoon of sunny skies, by 5pm the clouds had begun to gather. By 5:30 the rain was steadily falling and we heard the first whispers of a rain delay. Actually, the rain in itself isn't necessarily a huge deal, but lightning is an entirely different story. If meet officials see lightning, they must halt the meet for 30 lightning-free minutes before resuming. At 5:45 the first lightning was spotted and thus the first delay began. We had just arrived to JCSU from our hotel in Uptown, only to receive word that our scheduled 7:50pm race would not begin until at least 8:50. We returned to the hotel to wait. And we waited. And waited. The rain eventually abated, but the lightning just would not quit. Every 20 minutes or so we would receive updates of more delays. Finally, around 9pm, it seemed as though the weather would break. So again we piled into the van and again departed for JCSU...only to get the call halfway there that--you guessed it--proceedings were halted once again. We elected to continue to the gym and wait it out, but things weren't looking good. Just as we reached the gym the rain began falling again, this time in earnest. It seemed as though the meet officials were faced with three options: 1. Continue to delay until midnight or later and wait out the rain; 2. Cancel for the evening, then run prelims on Saturday morning and finals on Saturday night; or 3. Cancel for the evening, omit the prelims yet to be run, and run everything as finals on Saturday night. Just past 10pm, we got word that the committee had chosen door #3. Tanya and I were fine with this prospect, as it would give us an additional day of rest before the 5k, but it certainly did make for a crazy day (not to mention probably my lowest mileage day in months). It would've been great to get the word earlier in the evening so that I could've enjoyed some of life's simple pleasures like, you know, eating dinner; but overall I have few complaints about how this turned out. Now it's time to get my game face on for tomorrow night's 5k finals.