National Weather Service’s definition of gale warnings: Sustained surface winds, or frequent gusts, in the range of 39 mph to 54 mph.
What not to do during gale warnings: Parasail. Take small craft with leaky hulls out to sea. Windsurf. Change your contact lenses. Blow glass. Do your tax return. Do anything that involves tar and feathers. Juggle expensive China.
Or, run a 9.3-mile race that includes a towering bridge that’s tough enough to get over in a car not to mention tall enough that you need an oxygen tank.
That race was the Jacksonville River Run, and it was finished by more than 12,000 crazy lunatics just like me this past weekend. Twelve thousand crazy people who didn’t understand that if the winds were strong enough to blow down power lines and knock over trees, running across a mountainous bridge that is highly exposed to the elements isn’t the wisest of ideas.
OK, OK. First off, maybe there weren’t “gale warnings” out this past weekend. I MAYBE exaggerated. But there were sustained winds of 25 mph and gusts that topped 40 mph. And I’m guessing that on top of that bridge, which spans the St. Johns River, those gusts were much higher. I know this because one of those gusts slugged me like a fly-swatter made of bricks as I trudged up the incline, hunched over and desperately trying to convince my legs to keep moving. The wind literally stood me up straight and almost stopped me cold in my tracks. I was manhandled in the most inappropriate way.
It’s at moments like that — especially when you are skinny like a drinking straw and about as heavy as hay — that you think to yourself, “What in the heck am I doing up here? And let’s get down fast before we become a kite.”
The joys of running!
But you know, diehard runners love that kind of stuff. Days when the weather is like an enemy, doing everything it can to throw hurdles and roadblocks in your way. It makes for adventurous running and stories you can later tell your grandchildren: “Did I tell you about the time a hurricane blew me off the bridge in the middle of a run? I landed on a banana freighter headed to Guatemala and spent the next six months mopping floors and playing pinnacle to get enough money to call your grandmother. Did I mention it was snowing?”
That’s what makes running glorious. As we ran along the river earlier in the race, waves crashed upon the seawall swallowing up runners who dared get too close. Some people think wind makes you run slower, but not in that case. It’ll speed you up.
There’s a way that spectators stare at you in conditions like that, kind of like you’re a purple alien with something hanging out of your nose. They mouth things at you like, “Are you ill?” and “do you realize you could be home eating bacon?”
That thought occurred to me as I headed up the bridge. Amazing the adrenaline and excitement as you cross mile 7 and charge ahead to the next one. It must be how lemmings feel right before they go off the cliff. “Yipppeeee oh no, wait ”
When I got to the top of the bridge, the wind was blowing so bad that it was literally hard to breathe, as if all the oxygen was shooting by too quickly to be inhaled. I gulped for air as I tried to keep my legs pumping forward. The downhill was almost as tough as the up, and medics on the side of the road readied body bags.
Yet, somehow I survived. I finished, and finished pretty well. A minute faster than last year, and in 341st place. Who new I was a wind-runner?
We finished in Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, home of the Jaguars, and where thousands of screaming fans cheered us in. How glorious was that? Never have I experienced such a thing. Never have I felt such a thrill, an exhilaration — this crazy physical feat met with such adulation.
Never before have thousands of people looked down at me and wondered, “Just what in the heck is wrong with that individual? Doesn’t he know it’s windy out?”