Isn’t it April?

We had a storm blow through Southern California Sunday night. Rain this time of year isn’t unheard of, but it’s pretty uncommon. Add to that this was a winter storm (almost 2 feet of snow fell in the local mountains) and that made this storm more unusual. To all my friends in the Midwest – watch yourselves the next couple days! There’s a storm coming your way!

I had four miles on the plan, and got out around 5 PM to put them in. The storm had pretty much blown through, leaving a cool blustery day. Running into a cold headwind was not very appealing, so I headed up into the hills for some trail running. I wanted to rerun Sunday’s run in the upper reaches of El Moro.

The wind was *howling* over the ridge top, so I was looking forward to dropping into the canyon for a little protection.  But, I got a half mile from the parking lot and ran into the dreaded sign:

“Trails closed due to adverse conditions.”

Now, if there’s one thing that budget strapped politicians ecologically minded public servants do is protect the environment. And the best way to keep trails from getting torn up is to close them under threat of citation for a few days after a good rainstorm. And that threat of citation was enough to keep me off them! I shuffled back to the car and headed on down the hill to see if I wanted to run at Crystal Cove.

After a five minute drive (jeesh – it’s sure a lot farther when I have to run it), I was at the coast, where the winds were howling, the whitecaps were tossing, and my body was warm. I thought about my upcoming goal race (non-existent) and the warmth of the sunlight through the closed windows of my car. I think you can deduct what happened next….

Tonight it’s track time with Cal Coast. I hope the wind isn’t blowing….