I Ran In The Rain Today

I ran in the rain today.

I didn’t feel like it and put it off with everything I could think of, from emails to a long dog walk to reorganizing my supplies for showering at the gym. "I’m busy," I told myself, “and it’s raining and I’m tired and I can do it later.” I even went so far as to sit for several minutes in the parking lot debating whether to get out of the car. I really didn’t feel like it.

I ran in the rain today.

I went to the woods to run. I rebel at the idea of running anywhere else these days. My logical self knew that I needed time among the trees, that I would be less cranky and snippy and more productive if I made time to stretch my legs under a canopy of leaves and sky. Sometimes I’m glad when my logical self bullies my emotional self into doing what must be done. 

I ran in the rain today.

It wasn’t a torrential downpour, but instead came down with steadiness and reliability. It sometimes sounded like the palm of a hand slapping down on a tabletop as fat drops reached their terminal velocity before colliding with the enormous leaves of late summer. The slaps became the rhythm that I timed my footfalls to, my own backwoods drum circle as I wound around muddy trails.

I ran in the rain today.

Blackfly season is over, but the horseflies have been a nuisance unto themselves this year. Whenever I began to let my thoughts drift away, to disconnect from the burning in my out-of-shape legs, their bites would pinch me awake and pull me back to the moment, labored breathing and all.  These last many weeks I have given in to “busy” and let my to-do lists edge out what I know I need to be sustainable, to push my run or my yoga practice down the list until it fell right off the bottom of the page. Now my legs burn and my lungs burn and I have to get past the painful beginnings all over again. And the horsefly just won’t let me pretend otherwise.

I ran in the rain today.

I didn’t cure cancer or bring peace to a war torn nation. I didn’t even manage to get through the first part of my own checklist of tasks that must be done. But I got out of my car in the parking lot when I didn’t feel like it. I laced up my shoes. I put one foot in front of the other for a few miles. And I felt the coolness of the water on my skin, sating a thirsty soul that grows parched by long days at desks and chasing lists that have no end. I moved my animal’s body through its habitat in the forest and it remembered, for the briefest moment, what it was to be a wild thing meant to run. 

I ran in the rain today.