How to Keep Training in the Rain

It's rainy season once again (at least here in the Philippines). Therefore I would like to encourage all beginner runners to keep on training despite the weather.

I just feel for all newbie runners out there who just started out their running journey and beginning to catch the habit but then suddenly slowed down by the wet season. I'm with you and it reminds me of the days when I was training for one of my first 10K races and it was raining so often. Instead of running on my usual route and taking on hills as part of my training, I ended up running on our office’s covered parking. It’s frustrating.

I know how hard it is to follow our training plan when the weather is not on our favor, so please allow me to share a few thoughts on how to keep on track in this kind of season.

Train in the rain

How I hope I can push runners to try out running in the rain. It's feels like going back to my childhood days when we always have fun doing all kinds of stuff in the rain. However, it's not very advisable, not everyone would want our gears to get wet and all the inconvenience and the safety risks that comes with it.

That's why I dedicate this post to give an alternative but still could very be a part of our training and could also help improve our running as well.

Treadmill Run

The most ideal way to stick to your training when it's pouring rain is to settle for a treadmill run. If there's an accessible local gym or fitness center near you then treadmill is the way to go. This way, you can still log some miles and at the same time giving your feet some kind of a break because treadmill is a lot kinder than pavement.

Cross-train

Cross-training can be any sport or exercise that complements our running. In the case that we can’t run outside, we could instead find exercises that we can do in-doors. One of my favorites is core training because I can simply do it on my room and it could be done quickly. Working on our core can also improve our running because core strength, to put it simply, holds our important running muscles together so that we don’t get out of form when running.

If a pool is more accessible to you than a gym, then swimming could be the perfect cross-training for you. Swimming helps your running muscles to rest because swimming uses different muscle groups while still working on your cardiovascular strength.

Cross-training is actually a broader topic altogether and I just want to give an overview here and I believe that it could really be a vital part of our running. I’ll be posting more about it soon, but for now, I hope this post helped runners out there to keep on running and training even if it’s raining!

If you have more tips or questions on how to keep on training in rainy season, feel free to drop a comment!