Weather? What weather?

I have blogged about rain before. Running in the rain. I live in Vancouver, and that’s the reality of living in this fair city!

RAIN

Rain was also a bit of a theme last year. In 2014, I ran my first marathon…followed up later in the year by my second! When I ran the BMO Vancouver Marathon in May, it rained. It was a cold, insistent rain – but I made it through to the finish. My second marathon – my #42for42 – was the Honolulu Marathon. It rained there, too, but it was a warm, tropical rain (although still just as wet!).

True to form, I went out for a run on Monday afternoon, in the rain. Here in BC, it was Family Day so I had a whole day to enjoy! I went for a run along the Seawall to Stanley Park and back, with some fantastic ocean views. Yes, it was wet – and it was beautiful!

FOG

Fog is not exactly a challenge – but it makes for good photos! Over the past couple of weeks, Vancouver (and the Pacific Northwest as a whole) has been hit by a ‘Pineapple Express’ – warm tropical air that brings a lot of rain, and fog!

Last week, I ran the 4km to Forerunners to join my running group for our Saturday run. It was about 7:30am, and these are the photos I snapped along the way!

SNOW

If I had been blogging in January 2014, I would have proudly shared my experience of running in my Ontario hometown in minus 18 degree weather. The only way I could convince myself to get out was to join the local Running Room on their Sunday morning jaunt. Since their group is a bit smaller, they hand out maps of the route. At the top it said: LSD (long slow distance). Later that day I showed the map to one of my friends. He said, “You’d have to be on LSD to run in this cold!”

Last spring, I had a business trip to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and went for a bit of a run. Currently, as I write this, it’s minus 29 degrees in Yellowknife, but with the windchill it feels like minus 41. (For my American readers, that’s minus 20 Fahrenheit but feels like minus 42 Fahrenheit – yep, it’s when Fahrenheit goes below Celsius! It’s that cold!) To be fair, I visited when it was just slightly below zero!

And, of course, if you’ve visited my blog lately, you’ll have read about my TravelRun in Kamloops, BC. If you haven’t seen the lovely photos of that trip, here’s a teaser:

A few people have told me that I’m #hardcore for running in the rain. I hardly think so. The people who train in true weather extremes – whether hot or cold – they are the true #hardcore runners! However, I have to admit that somewhere along the way the weather has become less of a factor in my getting out for a run.

I just have to decide what to wear!

What are the most extreme weather conditions you’ve run in? Is there any weather that truly keeps you indoors? Share your stories!