Managing Expectations

Taiwan isn't known for its thunderstorms- we often have thunderstorm-strength torrential downpours but not much thunder and lightning. The one we got last Thursday, when I was teaching, was definitely out of the ordinary.

But the few days we've gotten US-style late afternoon thunderstorms. Yesterday I had planned to run after work, and we got a brief shower while I was still at work, but I checked the radar and it looked like the thunderstorms had moved through. On my way to the bike path to run, it was windy and crazy clouds were blowing through but I decided to run and chance it. And if you get caught at all in the rain without a raincoat, you quickly get as wet as you're going to get, so I planned to do my full run whatever came.

About 10 minutes into it it started to rain and 20 minutes in (out of only 35- I have a triathlon this weekend!) it started to really pour. Soggy shoes aside, it's kind of pleasant to run in the rain- much cooler! And of course I wasn't worried about getting wet for the rest of my scooter ride home. It didn't really start thundering until I was on my scooter, which was good- I don't mind rain but I prefer not to be outside for lightning.

I rode my bike into work today, figuring that we couldn't have late-afternoon thunderstorms 3 days in a row. Around 4 I realized that probably wasn't true, as it started thundering and started to look really ominous. I'm not a fan of riding in the rain, because it's more dangerous for me and the other road users to stop, and also harder for everyone to see, but I resigned myself to a slow careful ride. It turned out that although I saw rain to my east and west, I just got a little drizzle and a lot less humidity. It was awesome. When I got home I was the happiest person.