Don't Rain On My Parade

Workout:

2 mi. 19:12

I woke up this morning to the pitter patter of little raindrops on my window. In Los Angeles. Ew. This is not why I moved to southern California. Hear that weather gods? Not ok. I was casually aware that it might rain this morning and I had sort of laid out my running clothes accordingly. I thought maybe, just maybe, I’ll be hardcore and go running outside in the rain. My sister is training for her first ½ marathon in New Jersey and has been fighting the cold and snow all winter, so I totally understand that I am very spoiled living in SoCal. If she can run in snow and ice, I can run in rain … right?

Well. When I woke up, the rain was pounding my window. Now, admittedly, there’s a very large tree right outside my window that tends to make the weather seem more severe than it is. The leaves and branches rattle against the window and kind of freak me out. My bed was warm and cuddly, Moondoggie was over and my body just wasn’t having it. I snuggled back in bed and decided I would head to the gym in between classes. It was great – I got to sleep in extra late because all I had to do to get ready for school was throw on gym clothes. Score!

Fast forward 3 hours and 2 cups of coffee later [Hi, I’m Gidget and I’m a coffee addict]. As I was driving to the gym(and literally passing the exit to my house on the freeway), the clouds parted, the rain stopped and the sun came out. Sign that I should get off and run outside? Absolutely! I raced home to take advantage of the break in the weather. I already had my running clothes on, so it should have been as simple as grabbing Henry and heading out the door … except that I’m the world’s greatest procrastinator. I mean, I had to do my stretches. And tweet about my fabulous luck. And maybe read a blog or 2 for motivation. So, 30 minutes later, my beautiful weather window was fading fast. I had been hoping to run this at about a 10:30 pace, but as I stepped outside and same the ominous black clouds closing in fast, I made the determination that maybe I should just run as fast as possible. I was feeling pretty good for a while, but then it started to rain. Not awesome. And get windy. We’re talking really windy. I was having a really hard time catching my breath, but I hadn’t dressed for the rain (because not only am I a procrastinator, I’m an idiot). I didn’t want to be out any longer than I had to. So I just kept running – and running fast. Henry says my first mile was 9:48 and my second mile was 9:11. I’m unbelievably shocked at how fast I ran this. AND my knees didn’t hurt at all! My calves are kind of sore, not in a shin splint-y sort of way, but in a holy crap, I pushed myself! sort of way. This is actually the first time in a long time that my muscles have hurt from running, so I’m pretty pleased with it. I kind of love that I’m going so far out of my comfort zone!

It’s supposed to rain for the rest of the week [Again, weather gods take note, not ok] but there seems to be another small window of sunshine tomorrow morning, so I’m hoping to get in 2 miles in the morning. If not, it’s going to be another late night treadmill run [gross].

Has the weather ever motivated you to run faster? How do you push yourself out of your comfort zone?