When I woke, too early to get up, I could hear the rain dripping off the eave onto the deck. It was coming down hard. It was too early to get up because I didn’t want to get up yet. I was tired. It was dark. It was raining. I could have stayed in bed. And I did for a while–until 5:30. Then I rose in the glow of the night light and dressed myself and headed downstairs.

I tied my running shoes, slipped on a windbreaker and a billed hat, strapped my headlamp in place and…headed to the kitchen to get some more water. Then I checked the temperature again. Then I had to get going. The clock was ticking. So I stepped outside and found that the rain had stopped. Well, it had almost stopped. It was spitting at me as I started getting a pace on and rolled down the driveway.

It held off for a while. I got almost three miles before it really started to rain again. The fog had gotten thick, so I had turned off my headlamp. There was enough light and enough open road that I could turn it back on if a car approached. My pants were nearly scared right off when I encountered a person, I think it was a man, at the end of his driveway. “Hello,” he said as I was just upon him. All I could muster in my startledness was a blurted “How’s it going?” as I trotted past.

And then the rain started in again, gently at first, but steady. Then it got serious. I was pretty much soaked by the time I got home. Dripping. It was fairly warm–about 45 degrees–so I wasn’t all that cold but I was chilly enough. As I walked back up the driveway I had a mini-fantasy that my wife had started a warm fire and brewed some coffee, that I did not have to go to work after all and that I could sit (in dry clothes) with a warm mug and a good book and listen to the rain while I read.

Didn’t happen. The sun did come out today, after a struggle. I felt happy to have gotten out there early, however. It was early, it was dark, it was chilly, and it was raining. “Get out there and run anyway,” I told myself. And I did. And tomorrow? I plan to do it again, whatever the weather.