Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail ...

hmm... I guess that's the postman's motto, but it sure felt like my motto on Saturday morning when I broke one of my semi-cardinal rules of not running the same race twice. However, I did get 50% off my race entry fee (and races are NOT cheap) through work to run on my corporate team so I ran, for the second year in a row, the Get-in-Gear 1/2 marathon. Why the postman's motto? Because my last three races have been in rain, snow, cold, ice... fortunately no sleet or hail. I may have stopped at that last one. Unfortunate, but true. So, for a race I wasn't 100% excited about running again because I didn't love the race last year, at least I got out and ran in the rain. Here's some food for thought on the race:

1. Find good race support - Unfortunately, you can't have Carrie (who is the BEST race support EVER) so you'll have to settle with someone less good... and less cool.
   
2. Any race that doesn't give you a good schwag bag isn't worth it. The Pocatello 1/2 marathon (I know! Surprising!) took the cake on that one with the most fantastic schwag. EVER. And any endurance race that doesn't give a finisher medal doubly isn't worth it.


3. Know that if you only get one email with no info from the race that it is going to be a disaster in planning and logistics, and it was.


4. Drivers with race angst need to back off the horn. If someone needs to legally merge in (rather than cutting), lay off the horn. We're all going to be close to missing the race start due to the poor race logistics planning.


5. Get up early enough to get your body moving enough so you use the bathroom in your own place rather than relying on the port-o-pots at the race start. Imagine, if you will, thousands of racers standing in lines in the rain at only 10 port-o-pots, still 15 people to go in my line, and only 2 min till race start. Oh Man... Not going to make it. Luckily, one lady at the info booth knew there was a row of port-o-pots only 0.2 miles into the race. Lifesaver. Seriously.


6. Running 13.1 miles in the rain isn't an ideal spring Saturday morning but it is probably better than running the same distance in 90 degree weather.


7. Remember that running in the rain is different than running on a sunny afternoon or on the treadmill and thus requires different clothing.


8. When you forget about the requirement above and dress in your favorite DRY running clothes, remember that necessity is the mother of invention. AND, safety pins can be a savior in a pinch, like pinning your shirt to your pants that were stretching out and falling off because they were wet and I had to keep pulling them up every three steps. Pinning my shirt to my pants - GOLDEN! The last 5 miles I didn't have to hitch my pants up one time.


9. When you know you're going to be running in the rain and cold, take the right dry clothes to change in to. You may be hot when you're done running but it gets cold REALLY fast.


10. A long, hot shower and curling up on the couch to watch movies is a fantastic way to finish off a rainy post-race Saturday.