Beautiful Rain

The NNHS teams travel to Milton today for their second meet in four days. I always enjoy trips to Milton and Houghton's Pond. I remember seeing one of my first NNHS cross-country meets there in 2000, when my daughter was just getting started running for Peter Martin's team.

Although I have never competed in a running race at Houghton's Pond, I have competed in several orienteering meets there, including one in which I navigated through the woods for over three hours in an icy rain. On that day, I was competing with another runner and I truly thought I would have to pull him out of the woods when he started shaking from hypothermia. The lesson: when it's really cold, don't stop moving.

Yesterday's rain was nothing like that hard rain of so many years ago. Yesterday was a day to enjoy the rain, to frolic in it. At practice, everyone grumbled a little at first, and then went trudging out to do their modest pre-meet runs. Almost everyone came back grinning with the goofiness of it. I just stood around with the other coaches as the water ran down my neck and inside my clothes. Meanwhile, the kids stripped off their heavy long-sleeve shirts and exposed bare flesh to the heavens. At one point, the entire boys team came splashing back to the track, half-naked and silly with the pleasure of movement.

When practice was over, I went home and changed my grown-up clothes for running clothes, and went out myself to meet a friend for some hill running. At first, I shied away from the puddles and shivered a little at the rain that continued to fall. But after ten minutes, as my body heat warmed the moisture on my skin, I relaxed. We had a great time running up and down heartbreak hill in Newton, falling into a simple, careless rhythm, oblivious to the evening commuters coming home on Comm. Ave next to us.

I like sunny days, too, but the rain reminds us that running is also a form of play. Yesterday was a good day to go out and play in the rain.