Good afternoon RunDisney All-Stars! Welcome to this week's edition of Sundays are for Disney (SAFD). It's a rainy Sunday here in central NC and most of us are likely to be faced with rain on training run days at some point between now and Marathon Weekend. What do you do when it rains? Do you keep the runs outside? Move them to the (gasp) treadmill? What tips and techniques do you have to share with your fellows who may not yet have had the dubious pleasure of a raining training day?
SAFD:
First off, as long as there's no lightning, I'm running outside. You never know what the weather's going to be like on race day, so it pays to practice running in the rain so you're prepared. That philosophy has paid dividends for me over the years, never more such than in a 24h race last fall where we had constant rain for the first 8+ hours of the race.
As far as adjusting to it, I've learned to embrace the wet. Attempting to stay dry with a rain jacket generally just results in being hotter and just as wet from sweating inside the jacket than I would've been by just running in the rain. I'll caveat this with an exception, though. If it's a particularly chilly day with significant wind, a jacket can be beneficial. As a glasses wearer, as well, I find a hat with a decent brim to be essential to keeping as much water as possible out of my eyes. I don't tend to have issues with blisters from wet socks or shoes, but I'm sure some folks will be able to add tips for preventing them, as well.