When you first start out running on a rainy morning, you want to jump over or run around the puddles, holding onto the false notion that you could possibly keep your feet dry over the next few miles. Then you miss a leap and splash down, getting one foot soaking wet. So instead of slap, slap, slap, slap, your feet go, slap, splash, slap, splash.
This quickly becomes a little annoying and off-kilter, so to even things out, you decide to hit the next puddle with your dry foot. So now it’s splish, splash, splish, splash, and all is right with the world.
Then you think, heck, you only get wet once, and you deliberately start splashing in the puddles on your route — and you even find yourself making detours to hit extra puddles. And when the guy in the car comes by and drenches you — something that normally would tick you off — you just smile and wave.
It’s not often that adults can have fun in the rain. Usually, we are expected to carry umbrellas, and we dash from house to car to awning to store to avoid a drop of moisture. But sometimes in the dawn of a warm and wet Saturday, we can go out and, as one friend called it, have some play therapy.
“Running in the rain can be really cleansing and enjoyable,” said Alex Connor of Villa Hills, one of several who ran the course Saturday. “However, you need the right equipment (a hat with a brim is a must) and a few friends to motivate you through those first few minutes when you go from dry to soaked.”
But once you are soaked, the fun begins. You no longer care too much about the weather. It was cool enough on Saturday to be comfortable, and the rain just added to the enjoyment. It was mostly a light rain, heavier at times, but not a true downpour.
A hat and a good attitude was all you needed.
“On a summer morning, the light rain was rejuvenating and refreshing,” said Briana Smith of Fort Thomas, who is back to running after giving birth to a son a few months ago. “The soggy shoes were a little annoying at first, and dodging puddles became a concentration game, but you got used to it.”
Among the conversations on the run was one about how to get those shoes dry. Of course, old newspapers stuffed inside are a longtime remedy (Yay for newspapers). But why? Is it the high pulp content of old newsprint? Would a magazine work as well? No, we decided, too glossy. How about notebook paper? What about old t-shirts? Diapers?
Perhaps our brains were too wet. Jennifer Kloenne-Thimmadasaiah, who wasn’t on the run that morning, had the perfect solution: “I try to use the last pair of shoes I used for training for rain running, instead of the ones I currently use, so it keeps my current ones dry.”
Well, why didn’t we think of that? Maybe we had our heads in the rain clouds…
“The sound of the rain on the brim of my hat and the visual of raindrops in front of me is calming and almost trancelike,” said Emily Cahill. “It also is fun to think to myself that all the passersby in cars are either thinking, ‘she’s nuts,’ or ‘dang, she’s a badass.’”
But it also could lead to too much thinking about your upcoming runs — and your past ones.
“I love the race it creates with mother nature,” said Joe Durrett of Edgewood.
“Last Saturday I tried to time my nine-mile run in between tropical storm Bill — when wouldn’t I get too wet? — but in the end I was still soaked yet felt great. Other mornings, when you go out with the storm rolling in around you, watching the sky light up with bolts of lighting, and the debate in your head is, ‘Do I run faster to beat the storm?’ But nothing beats the end of the 2013 Flying Pig Marathon, when the rain started while I was around mile 20. By mile 25 in my first marathon, I was cursing the marathon and how dumb running 26.2 miles is. Four marathons later and looking back, I now realize it was so refreshing. I love running in the rain. Throwing some miles down with mother nature is a good change of pace.”
Paul Long writes weekly for the NKyTribune about running and runners. For his daily running stories, follow him at dailymile.com or on Twitter @Pogue57