Working out, weather or not…
As I’ve written in previous entries, often the hardest part of working out is getting out the door in the first place. So throw in Storm Doris and you’d think that training would be called off. Except that at Jo’s Thing we don’t operate quite like that. This morning I was out in the park with a client at 8.15 and there’s no getting away from it, it was vile weather! Really windy, rainy and #stormDoris was really getting herself in a tizzy.
After a few mumbles of “I can’t believe you’ve got me here… in this…when I could still be in bed…..eurgh…” from my 50+ year old client, we got on with it and before she knew it, she had jumped, carried, pulled, pushed, lifted, swung, slammed and boxed herself warm, happy and to a point where the weather was irrelevant. She *almost* skipped out of the park at the end of her session. She arrived with a waterproof jacket and a hat, both of which were off before the end of the warmup. A mere 10 or 15 minutes after she’d walked into the park, the perceived ‘discomfort zone’ was now totally her comfort zone: the weather is only a distraction when you’re thinking about walking out of the door to the park.
You see, the thing is here that the thought of getting wet is much worse than the reality. Our skin is waterproof, our clothes can be washed and dried and our bodies aren’t going to get fitter, stronger, healthier, leaner and happier if we don’t workout because of the weather. Running in the rain (after the first bit where you are *getting* wet) is a totally exhilarating experience, because once you ARE wet, you can’t get any wetter! The only other people out there are other runners who have also discovered that their skin doesn’t leak in the rain and there are often high fives and respectful grins galore.
The idea of stepping out of the door into the windy rain really is the hardest part of a workout in bad weather. On the other hand, if you’re not quite committed and looking for excuses not to train, then yes, it’s the perfect excuse.
Moving on to my next session this morning: our Thursday 9.30 running group. I moved it from the seafront (where we really would have been blown all over the place) to Preston Park and within minutes the sun was shining! As the ladies arrived they were laughing their heads off about the texts which they’d all exchanged, making each other promise to turn up, despite the rain. But, as the estate agent who we bought our house off 20 years ago said at the time, it’s always sunny in Brighton and when it does rain, it never lasts for long! How right he was.
Funnily enough, when we were in the dark in the park during an Early Birds session a couple of weeks ago, one of my long term regulars announced that she wished that it would snow again soon so that we can workout in the snow. Crazy as it sounds, working out in the snow is completely MAGIC! I suspect that probably won’t happen this year now, but if it does, we’ll be there!
