Remember when...

Remember when I always said I would rather run in the rain than in the heat? Mother nature has been putting that to the test the last two weekends. I will not complain about the rain, because we need it so badly. In fact, even with the massive amount of rainfall this weekend and flooding, we're still totally screwed.

As I thought about last weekends long run in the rain, my attire worked for seven miles in light sprinkles. I wore long sleeves, long tights and a hat. The only issue I had was when I hit one windy part and I got really cold. For today's eight miles, I knew the rain was falling harder and it was windier so I made the decision to wear a jacket over my long sleeves.

All weekend I had been worried about flooding and cars and cars driving through puddles and spraying me if there was flooding. I toyed with the idea of driving to the park and not running on the street at all. I also knew that there would be parts of the trail that would be flooded. I thought briefly about going to the gym with my husband and running eight miles on the treadmill, ick. Once I woke up on Sunday morning I knew I couldn't go to the gym, it would be crowded and hot and it would suck.

I put my big girl panties on and stepped out of my garage into the pouring rain. A half mile into my run I was pretty wet. I briefly thought about turning around and changing my clothes into shorts and a tank top and heading to the gym. But that seemed like a lot of energy that I could just put into continuing on another 7.5 miles.  There was flooding and debris that I had to negotiate all while keeping my eyes on traffic. The amount of noise along Moraga Way was deafening, I couldn't even hear my music, which I had turned down to make sure I could hear anything I might need to. You wouldn't think the noise of cars on a wet road could be so loud, it was shocking really. As soon as I made my first turn off of Moraga Way, I felt a calming affect as the noise quieted.

Along the trail I came across one other runner, one cyclist and three walkers. Other than that it was really quiet. I was never so thankful to hit my turn-around at mile four.

Is it over yet?

By this point I was squeezing water out of the arms on my jackets. I felt like i had gained ten pounds on this run. This jacket absorbed way too much water. While i have never been out this long in it, when I've worn it int he past it has reflected rain well, but that has been for runs to the store and picking up kids at school. I really wanted to ditch it, but it was at least keeping my core warm.

There was a lot of flooding and I had to crisscross along the trail to avoid big puddles.

When I got home I took my shoes and socks off in the garage because they were soaked through. I took my jacket off and hung it in the shower to drip dry. Learning from my mistake of last weekend (don't immediately jump in the shower because that results in heat rash) I stripped off all of my clothes and threw on flannel pj's and a robe to warm up and some compression socks. This worked much better than last weekend.

Phew! Now that this long run is done, I'm curious if you have any advice on run clothes for the rain. I have a water and wind proof cycling vest, I'm thinking about wearing that over a long sleeve technical shirt might be a better option in terms of keeping my core warm and not adding tons of weight with a water soaked jacket. I'm also wondering if my thinner capri's would be better, less material to absorb water?