Back on March 21st of last week, I posted about advice on running in the rain. Well after this past weekend’s North Carolina Half Marathon in the pouring rain, I wanted to review all the strategies and techniques I used and how they worked out.
Just a quick recap of the weather from the race. It was about 40 degrees, 8-10mph winds, and heavy rain downpour.
I will start by over viewing what I wore from the ground up. I wore my normal running shoes with my normal running socks. For my lower body, I wore my compression sleeves on my calves with a pair of running shorts covered with a pair of Nike running wind pants. For my upper body, I wore a Nike short sleeved tight wicking running shirt. Over this I wore a long sleeve Nike long sleeved wicking running shirt. I topped all of this off with a New Balance light weight, water repellant zip up rain jacket. I purchased this at the New Balance outlet last week, and it worked great for the conditions. The rain beaded up on it like when you put Rain-X on your car windshield! Awesome purchase. For my head, I work a Nike running cap with a brim & wore my Native Sunglasses with clear lens.
For the conditions, the gear all worked as best as it could for the conditions. I stayed warm enough for the temperatures, and the outer shells kept me as dry as possible. The only thing that got really soaked was my running shoes. Hard to protect them. The hat and glasses did awesome for keeping the rain out of my eyes.
Before the race I cut a large trash bag to go over my upper body to help keep me as dry as long as possible. This worked great. I also duct taped a Target bag around each of my running shoes to keep my shoes dry as long as possible. This did well, but it was raining so hard and pooling, my shoes still got wet some, but not soaked. Next time in these conditions, I will double bag each and that should work better.
Finally, I used Body-Glide every where possible, and this worked great, and had no issues. I also put lots of Vaseline on my feet so when my socks got wet, blisters & hot spots would not appear. This was awesome advice! Highly recommended, as I had no issues with my feet. In fact, when I got back to the hotel, and took my shoes and socks off, I could wring my socks out! Just awesome!
For the conditions, this all worked out well, and should I have another training run or race in the future, bring it own as I feel comfortable with this plan.
I hope this helps you with future runs and races with similar conditions.
Happy Running in the RAIN!
