Running in the Rain

We have had a very rainy day down here in lower AL, which of course meant lots of soggy miles!

I was supposed to do my long run today, so I made plans to meet Rebecca and Lizzie for 12 miles this morning and then I was going to finish the remaining 6 miles by myself (spoiler alert … that didn’t happen). I woke up to sounds of thunder, but after a look at the radar and a brief discussion, we decided that the rain wasn’t going to be bad until around 8:30 and that we should be about done by that point anyway. Well, let me just tell you, the weather app lied.

It was already sprinkling when we met, but we had all gotten up and driven over to run, so we decided to go anyway. It was just the three of us girls and two other guys that showed up (apparently the majority of the usual crowd didn’t want to go in the rain … odd). By the time we finished our first mile, we were running in what seemed to be hurricane-like torrential downpours. We had the opportunity to bail on the usual route and make it 4 miles, but we decided to stick it out a little bit further, because there was another chance to cut it short later that would make it 8 miles. The logic here was that Rebecca wanted to run for at least an hour, so that she would be running longer than it takes her to drive round-trip to the run. Made perfect sense.

By the time we got to the turn to make it 8 miles, we decided that we were out here anyway and we were completely drenched already, so why stop now? Oh and just as a side note, the guys had all bailed at this point and so we were feeling very hard-core 🙂

We came to our water stop on the golf course at mile 5.5 and we stopped for a little bit to get water, go to the bathroom, etc. and this is where it got interesting. Lightning started popping all around us and we were playing the game where you count the time between the lightning and the thunder to see how close it is to you. It was *very* close. We couldn’t help but laugh when the lightning sirens on the golf course started blaring and we noticed that the little shelter we were standing under had a sign that literally said, “this structure does NOT provide protection against lightning.” We weren’t really sure what our best option was going to be at this point, so we just decided to wait it out for a few minutes in our unsafe shelter. Thankfully the weather cleared up a good bit and the lightning stopped completely and we were able to finish our route without any more issues.

We ran back into town looking like wet rats and at this point, the rain had almost stopped completely and the sun was coming out, so were just looking like crazy folks. I couldn’t muster up the drive to finish out my run by myself. I need my friends to run. And the coffee. I really didn’t want to miss our weekly coffee loft gathering because I was out doing silly things like running more miles. Plus, I knew Daniel didn’t run yet. I could go with him later. The coffee and conversation were totally worth it. Win, win.

Daniel and I headed to church and the grocery store when I got home. Our sermon was on prayer this week and it was so good! I’m going to do my recap post tomorrow. I have been wanting to do a post about anxiety and I think that a post about anxiety and prayer will make a great combination.

Apparently I was in the mood for coconut today. I came away from the store with all things coconut. Coconut water, coconut popsicles, coconut yogurt, coconut milk ice cream and dark chocolate coconut granola. Oh my.

After a nice long nap, Daniel was ready to get his run in, so I decided to go 6 miles with him so that I could meet my long-run mileage for the day. Not the ideal way to get it in, but conditions were less than ideal today and it is what it is. Of course, when we headed out this evening it was raining again! But we had a great time running in the rain and talking. Something about running in the rain is very freeing and is just pure, old-fashioned fun (if you’re into that sort of thing, obviously).

In the spirit of a rainy day, I wanted to share some tips for running in the rain:

• Wear a hat. A hat with a brim is your best friend during a rainy run. It will keep the rain off your face, so you can see, even in a downpour.
• Girls, braid your pony-tail if it is long enough. I forgot this little tip today and the result wasn’t pretty. Can we say rats nest?
• Wear old shoes.
• Invest in a shoe dryer. This isn’t really a rain-specific tip either. As hot and humid as it is here, we use the shoe dryer on the regular. Daniel says that the shoe dryer is the best running accessory after his Garmin watch, so that’s pretty high up there. If not, you can stuff your shoes with crumpled balls of newspaper. This helps the shoes keep their shape, and the paper draws moisture away from the shoes. Here is our dryer.
• Just get out there and run! The hardest part of running in the rain is often just getting started. Once you begin running and warm up, you may find that you actually enjoy it. And it’s good preparation in case you ever have to run a race in the rain. Plus when else is it going to be 70 degrees in July?!

Anyone else get some gloriously sogyy miles in today? Any more rainy running tips to share?