Be careful what you wish for.

After shivering at the top of Independence Pass in the very early hours of the morning, I wanted to run in daylight with the hot sun gently warming my shoulders. I wanted to run in shorts and a T-shirt instead of long sleeves, a fleece, and tights. I imagined an unhurried run on a meandering country road lined with trees and pretty houses. Singing birds, laughing children, virginal maidens in long white dresses with flowers in their hair...

What I got was Kansas. Mile after mile of straight, flat, baking black asphalt, the air thick and wavery with excess heat. The roads in Kansas leave you nothing to hope for. I was impossibly hot. I longed for rain. Cool and refreshing rain, falling softly from a pillowy gray sky...

What I got was a huge thunderstorm. My run in Missouri started dry, but finished in a deluge. At first, the rain felt good, sharp and cool on my sun-scorched skin, but within minutes, my shoes filled with water, my teeth started chattering, and my shirt and shorts clung unpleasantly, as if I'd decided to wrap myself in a really large and extra-sticky spiderweb. I resisted waiting out the storm in the team van; after all, I'd wanted some rain! I'd even demanded it! I sloshed and slopped and squished and squelched through a mile or two, getting progressively more sodden and bedraggled and having a repetitive conversation with my teammates, who were watching me with concern from inside the team van.

“Get in.”

“No.”

“Get in.”

“No.”

“Get in.”

“No.”

Then a huge lightning bolt hit about 500 yards in front of me. I flung up my hands, screamed like a little girl, and tried to crawl under the van.

Be careful what you wish for. Very, very careful.

I used to complain about business trips. All my time was taken up by...well, business. I had work to do and no time for running, unless I snuck out of the hotel very early or hit the treadmill very late. I often silently wished I could find an easy way to squeeze in a decent run while I was traveling. Funny how things work out. Now, I run for a living. I never miss a workout. I travel and I run. I travel while running. Sometimes, while I'm sleeping, my legs even run without me.

Wish granted.