Running In the Rain

It's Saturday morning. Laying in my bed, I look out my window to see grey clouds filling up the sky. I pull my warm comforter a little tighter to me as I notice the pine tree swaying from the wind.

It looks like a cold morning.

The last few weeks I've been trying to run every morning...but this morning I'm feeling tired and it looks too cold to run outside anyways. In my mind I question myself: "How long am I going to keep this daily running routine up anyways?", Am I going to run during the winter?" , "Won't I get sick if I run out in the freezing cold weather?". These are just a few of the things going through my head. Meanwhile, I turn on my side pulling the comforter with me.

This feels good where I'm at.

Eventually I did pull myself out of bed, put on my basketball shorts, red stinky shirt, socks, and my makeshift running shoes (Hiking boots). Yeah, I know hiking shoes are probably the worst shoes a person could run in....but it happens that these are more comfortable than any of my other shoes that I own. Just as I step outside my apartment door a gust of ice cold air nearly blows me right back into my apartment. Literally. Not only was it cold, it was strong.

I've been timing myself lately to trying to add a little excitement to my run. I do this by taking along my cell phone. It has a nifty stopwatch on it that once you start the time the screen stays lighted until you stop the time.

When I got down to the street I started the stopwatch and started my run. Not even a minute into my run I felt raindrops on my head.

Great.

Not only is it freezing cold outside, it has to rain on top of that. "Can't you get hypothermia running in the rain?" I thought. Oh well. Let's just get this over with.

Wait.

Did I just say: "Let's"? It's official. I'm going mad. Look what running does to the mental mind. I should just stop running altogether. Sure I'll get a big fat beer belly from not exercising, but at least I'll have my sanity. Let's see.....doh! There I go again.

Maybe I'm not insane. Let's....no....I'm going to analyze this myself. I have my mental self (Who would be in bed right now instead of running) and my physical self (who is running right now). So technically I can say "Let's". (I smile) So I'm not insane. Cool. Back to my run.

It doesn't take long to forget that it's raining. I'm running at a medium tempo which gets my heart pounding fairly fast. I start counting my strides as I run: "One, Two, Three, Four, One, Two, Three, Four". As I'm counting this song pops into my head: "Party like a rock star, Party like a rock star"....so I sing this over and over for a little bit. I just happens to have the same beat as counting so it works pretty good. My sister (Liz) kept playing it on her phone this summer...and that's where I originally heard it. I think about my sister for a minute wondering if she's going to do the Lake Powell Triathlon that we'd talked about doing. "I wonder if she's running or riding her bike to train. My nephew Steven mentioned he'd like to do the tri too if Liz and I were. About this time, I begin to push myself a little harder to run a little faster. Steven took first place in his age division at the Rush Tri up in Rexburg, ID.

I need to push myself a little harder.

I focus on the mountains in front of me. I notice there is a little snow in the mountains already. "That's awesome. I can't wait for winter" I think as I start thinking about snowboarding this winter.

If I haven't already lost you....this is a similar patter of thoughts that go through my head when I'm running in the mornings. Yes. They are random. But that's just the edge of the iceberg. Running is a great time to think. Not necessarily think about coherent things...but just a chance to think to myself.

Try it for yourself.

You may discover that your crazy. ;o)