For starters, no one else is outside, you are all alone... no lawnmowers, no one smoking outside, very few cars, and no outside dogs barking at you... the only thing you hear is the gentle patter of rain, your breath and your own footfalls. There's something meditative about a run in the gentle rain.
There are times when I look outside and take note of the weather conditions and just wish that I could just stay inside, but the experience is never as enlightening or calming as a good run in the rain. The only other similar experience is running in the snow. These are often the weather conditions that many, including myself, have used to excuse themselves from getting outside and getting active.
I usually get a lot of thinking done when I'm running. Entire lesson plans get completely rewritten for the next day or even the whole week on a run. I solve social, political and economic problems on a run. I have singlehandedly solved many, if not all, problems with educational policy and leadership on a run. The societal ills that I make better on a run is directly related to the length and difficulty of the run. The longer and easier the run the more complex the problem I can solve. On a rainy or snowy run that is long and easy... you can't imagine what I can do with that.
What's surprising is that those of us who don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain, stay out there because we have learned the meditative qualities of these runs... and now I've blown our secret. It's not always nearly as unpleasant as it looks, in fact, I would say you don't really notice it all that much until the run is over and you come inside... then you need a towel.
Or maybe we really don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain.
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