By Take The Magic Step® team member Scott Douglas, a runner since 1979 and a writer about the sport for almost as long
Those of us who haven’t been to San Diego will have to take it on faith that 70 degrees and sunny gets old ’round about the 138th consecutive day. But wouldn’t it be great to find out for ourselves? From my perspective on the Maine coast, the main drawback would be having to come up with a whole new list of gripes once “It’s too cold/hot/rainy/snowy/windy/icy” are taken away. I suppose you could always complain that there’s nothing to complain about.
Like most people, runners complain about the weather and don’t do anything about it. But unlike most people, we often do something despite it. One of the great appeals of running its minimalism—little gear needed, all the world a playing surface. So unlike participants in other sports, who might occasionally face a snow-covered tennis court or roads too icy for cycling, we’re usually out there plying our craft regardless of conditions. In fact, sometimes plying our craft because of the conditions. I can’t be the only one who has gone out on the coldest day of the year just to see what running in a -30 wind chill feels like.
There have been, alas, lapses. Some days, my primal self has shuddered insistently enough at the thought of being half an hour from home in the day’s dreadful weather to win out, even though my rational self argues for at least a token run. (Or is it my rational self that opts for the day off? Better not probe this one too deeply.) I can honestly say that I’ve never regretted going for a run on horrible-weather days, but I have gone to bed a little disappointed with myself when Wimpy Scott has prevailed. Fortunately, I now own a treadmill, so I don’t miss days because of weather, thereby freeing me to berate myself in bed for other of the day’s shortcomings.
What can we learn from pushing out the door on days when weather and inertia are delivering a potentially fatal one-two punch? First, you can get only so wet. A Nike rep once told me, “There is no bad weather, just bad gear.” She must have been calling from San Diego. Almost everywhere else, there are indeed days that even a glass-is-one-tenth-full type would frown upon. But so what? After 20 minutes in a downpour, you’re saturated. What horrible fate can strike if you stay out for another 40 minutes? No one who thinks the point of life is to always be as comfortable as possible chooses to become a runner anyway. So yes, some days you will get soaked, or chilled to the bone, or blown around, or baked. Then you will return inside, and the feeling will pass. There’s a line from a Stereolab song that often pops into my head during such times: “It’s not eternal/Interminable.” Thanks to running, I’ve often been able to apply that wait-it-out mindset when I find myself in other less-than-ideal circumstances, whether it be biting winds while shoveling the daily snow storm, or trying nonmeteorological situations. (Air India, I’m looking your way.)
Second, getting out on difficult days makes us more capable people. We can almost always do more, and better, than what seems possible from the womb-like comfort of the couch. The toughness, the resolve that germinates while running in all types of weather is then available in the rest of our lives.
But let’s not consider bad weather in terms of dutiful drudgery. Running is most enjoyable when done regularly, meaning that we get to experience nature in all of its local flavors. Aren’t some of your most memorable runs so precisely because of the extraordinary nature of the day? My easily recalled war stories include 18 miles during March 1993’s “blizzard of the century;” an out-and-back 12-miler on New Year’s Eve 2001 in such great wind that I came home 90 seconds a mile faster; a June 1994 8-miler when the humidity was so high that my shoes made squishing sounds after only 18 minutes; a January 2004 4-miler on a morning so cold that the edges of the Atlantic Ocean were frozen; and a July 2002 7-miler on a day so smoggy that the Washington, D.C. area was under a heretofore undeclared status of “Code Purple,” which basically meant, Try not to breathe today. Isn’t it fun to recall the perseverance you showed on your equivalent days?
These extreme examples point to the greatest value of running in all weather—the distinctiveness of experience that doing so grants us. I sometimes have a hard time keeping the bulk of my weekdays from blurring into one another. Did I edit that article about that new Albanian youth sports foundation on Tuesday afternoon, or was that Thursday morning? In contrast, I could tell you in a second about the deluge during Sunday evening’s run, the bright pink in the sky during Tuesday morning’s run, the full moon under which I did a track workout that evening and the eerie blue mist of late Thursday afternoon’s 11-miler.
Weather perhaps best captures how running allows me to feel different and better (more adventurous, childlike, open) than I otherwise would be. Now, won’t you come outside and play?
A version of this essay will appear in Scott’s forthcoming book On Solid Ground: What It’s Like to be a Runner. More sneak peaks of the book will be available exclusively on this site in the coming months.
