I am seriously what you could call a “fair weather” runner and have used the weather as my excuse for why I couldn’t run. “It’s too cold,” “It’s too hot”…or (the most often used) “It’s raining!” That is until this morning. I had planned to run at 6 but woke to the sound of steady rain which easily justified me rolling over to go back to sleep. I clung to my pillow for as long as possible until Thing 1, Thing 2 and the dog made that impossible — time to escape the chaos and go run!
When I came downstairs to head out, my hubby informed me that according to weather.com’s hourly forecast I had a break before the next showers were to begin. Sounded good to me so out the door I went – but I decided at the last second to leave my iPod behind just in case I didn’t want it soaked. Well… let’s just say Mother Nature has a sense of humor cause I was no more than 2 minutes into my run when the rain started again. As I hit my first hill, it was now a steady rain and I was quickly getting soaked. But instead of turning for home, as I might have done in the past, I decided to just embrace it. Besides I kept telling myself, you can’t control the weather the day of the race so you might as well see what you can do in the rain! Without my iPod (another first for me!), I just listened to the rain fall and my own breathing — it was very peaceful. And as I hit my second hill I was feeling oddly good, my pace was still steady and my left leg was cooperating. The rain subsided and the rest of the run felt good…I even managed to shave a little time off from my previous runs this week! And….drumroll please….I actually didn’t mind running in the rain!
So week 8 of C25K is in the books – final week coming up and still 2 weeks til race day!
That’s a good lesson for life too, right? Embrace what is and things begin to flow.
What you resists…persists!!!
Good for you. I know about being a fair weather athlete since I’m one too. 🙂