When Running and Work Collide

I am having a crisis of conscience.  My desires as a runner and my chosen vocation as a water resource manager have reached cross purposes. Given my region has been in and out of severe drought for most of the last 7 years I thought I knew a lot about drought.  Not everything mind you, but once you have told people that you are cutting off all discretionary water use, so you can continue to meet public health and safety demands, you have got some water management street cred.  Also some slashed tires, an egged house and you might have been the cause of at least one pre-dawn brawl at the Dunkin Donuts over sod, but I digress.

So our region is out of drought, way out of drought, saw Noah at the Home Depot, out of drought. So here is where I realize I missed a very important thing about drought.  It is great if you are a runner.  When we are in drought I don't have to spend hours comparing three weather apps and then calculate the probability of it raining or lightning during my run.  In a drought the weather forecast looks something like for the next year the weather will be hot and dry, and oh yeah you may have to implement alternating showering days in your household to extend supply.  So maybe on my non-shower days, I don't run.  A gift to everyone.  As a water resource manager the full Lakes and high streamflows, absent from our area for nearly a decade, should (save 2009 when we ended a catastrophic drought with a once 10,000 year flood event)  bring a tear to my eye.  Instead I feel guilty at how much I wish it would stop raining.  I am not even sure saying that isn't grounds for firing me, but hey I just want to run without worrying that I might receive a concussion from basketball size hail or a falling tree.

Somehow I am going to have to reconcile the side of me that can't believe my neighbor's irrigation system is on everyday, even though we have receive 224% more rain than average this month, with the part of me that is so grateful to run through it in the heat and humidity of the uphill climb home.  I know I can't live with myself either way.  I am sure someone is coming to take my official rain gauge and high efficiency toilet away.  I hope running and your career don't ever run headlong into a crisis of guilt induced thoughts of a potential summer drought and sending an official "turn your sprinkler system off" letter to your neighbor.