Friday, April 03, 2020

I thought it might rain during my afternoon run but I went anyway. As you can see, no problems with social distancing....



I thought it would be a good afternoon for a run so I grabbed a small and lightweight camera, my rain jacket and my running shoes and headed down to Lady Bird Lake to hit the hike and bike trails. Dr. Fauci would be so proud of me because I wore my homemade face mask for the entire run. It hung in there well.

I stopped a couple of times near the beginning of the run to take some still photos which I intend to turn into masterpieces later but the few threatening rain drops decided to up the ante and, with a little help from a vicious north wind, the rain became a full bore downpour. Torrents and torrents of rain deftly guided by vicious wind gusts. The temperature dropped about 25 degrees over the course of a 45 minute run.

Even though the Sigma fp camera and the Panasonic 24-105mm lens are supposed to be "weather resistant" at a certain point I chickened out of this "trial by fire" (or should it be trial by immersion?) and tucked the camera and lens inside my rain jacket. The last half of the run was uncomfortably fun.

My shoes and socks were soaked, the bottom half of my shorts were soaked and I was starting to get concerned about lightning. So I stopped for a few minutes under the famous and well documented pedestrian bridge and then I remembered that the Sigma fp does video. Lots and lots of video, so I took a few minutes to catch my breath and shoot some footage of the Biblical style rain.

It wasn't my best time for a four mile run but I don't usually have a camera under my jacket either.

The camera and lens are both fine and ready for the next adventure. Me? I'll have to let everything dry out first.

As you can probably see from the footage there is little chance anyone played fast and loose with social distancing out there this afternoon. There were only three other people on the entire four mile loop. Everyone else seems to believe that you can't go outside in a cold rain. They just don't know what they are missing....

Feeling alive.