Benefield: When weather gets tough, tough get running

I went into this thinking I’d talk to the gritty folks who do not, will not, let weather deter them from getting outside on their run. The ones who don headlamps in the dark, slickers in the wet and gloves in the cold. The ones I saw running through the heart of recent storms, jauntily dancing around puddles while I turned my windshield wipers to “high.”

The ones whom most of us shoot a sideways glance to as we turn up the heat in our car.

Turns out, those folks don’t think they are gritty. They just think they know a secret in how to have fun.

“Sometimes I’ll call the guys and say, ‘It’s raining, let’s go!’?” Greg Fitch of Sebastopol said moments after completing a muddy 14-mile trail run out of Howarth Park in Santa Rosa with running buddy Dave Moore.

“You get to be a kid again,” he said. “One of the puddles I jumped in, I was trying to get him but I got me.”

All-weather runners say the rain cools them off, the mud infuses fun and the puddles - well, who here has a problem with puddles?

But upon further investigation, there is a smidge of grit here.

“The hardest part is actually getting those first few steps out the door. You are looking at it and going ‘I’m nice and dry’ and in 30 seconds you are soaking wet,” said Kenny Brown, manager at Heart and Sole running store in Santa Rosa.

“The first mile or so you are avoiding the puddles, then once your foot slips or you hit the first puddle, then it doesn’t matter and you are going straight through,” he said.

Brown leads regular group runs for all abilities of runner and said it’s in the winter, and in the rain, that he gets his biggest turnouts.

“The last couple of years, people were upset because the parks were too dry,” he said. “People like splashing through puddles. It’s a chance to kind of be a kid again.”

All-weather runners say the sights, sounds and even smells are different in foul weather. And the dark, winter months bring new challenges but also new experiences on the street and on the trail.

“It’s a whole different experience,” said Rebecca Forth of Santa Rosa, who logs between 42 and 45 miles a week. “Running in the dark, to begin with, it’s a very different sensory experience. You are not relying on your sense of sight as much and you are really listening. You are trusting that you know the route and that there is nothing out there.”

Forth says she actually thrives in the rain.

“I think it’s pretty thrilling to run in the rain,” she said. “Especially when it’s a little bit wild and the rain is driving into you and the wind is howling into your ears.”

The runners I spoke with understand that those who use the first sight of a sprinkle to call off their run will not understand the want or the need to set out in the rain. The confusion is even greater for those who don’t run at all. But those who refuse to be dictated to by wicked conditions, those who might even seek out the wet and the muck, almost speak the same language about the pull of a rain-swept run.

They talk of the smell of the trail, the joy of the splash and the freedom and the kind of weird feeling it is to run around wet. On purpose.

“Some of the most memorable runs have been on bad weather days,” said Larry Meredith, past president of Empire Runners. “You are going together thinking ‘What are we doing?’ It’s exhilarating to be blasted by the weather.”

“It’s kind of a free feeling,” he said.

And no footfall is the same in bad weather. Dancing around deep water or slick surfaces keeps runners on their toes - literally.

“I love running up in Annadel when it’s all wet and you are fording puddles,” said Tanya Narath of Santa Rosa. “There is something about the challenge of it, being out there when you know not many other people are going to be out in the weather.”

Except for all of the other mud lovers.

“It’s cool to see how nature behaves and you are a part of it,” Fitch said. “Especially when you are wet and muddy - you are a part of it.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com and on Twitter @benefield.