I live and train in a four season city.
In the winter it’s brutally cold, snowy and frequently icy.
In the summer it has often been blisteringly hot and smokey from wildfires.
In the spring and autumn… well, anything goes.
As I write this I’m wrapped in a blanket and still drying out from a fifteen klick training run where our summer skies opened up on us and it started to rain hard, mid-run. We got back to the shed soaked and chilled to the bone.
Later, I opened up a social media app while I was slurping down a hot bowl of soup for lunch and scrolled by a reel of a frowning young woman in her running gear looking glumly through a rain-speckled window and implying that she was staying indoors. Hopefully it was a parody.
But here’s the gentle reminder for people new to the sport:
It really is uncomfortable being out in the cold rain, yeah, drenched through to the skin all while trying to jam out the last few klicks of your planned run for the day. And what I often remind my fellow runners, if we waited for perfect running weather we’d only ever get out a few times per year. We joke about it. There is no perfect. In fact, one of our running friends was off doing an ultramarathon this weekend and relayed back home that he had stepped into a mud puddle that went up past his thigh. Perfect conditions are often little more than an illusion and an excuse. Waiting for the skies to clear or the temperatures to settle or the paths to be just right for footing—none of that gets the run done.
Whatever the seasons happen to be where you live and train, sure, look out the window and lament… but then dress for the weather the world has given you and get it done.
