Rain, rain, don't go away

Good morning Southcentral Alaska, and welcome to autumn. If weather forecasters are right, this week we'll see rain followed by more rain. Personally, I'm grateful for the break. I pushed myself hard to get outside during this unusually beautiful summer. But after a few nights of staying in and reading, the rain doesn't make it easy to head outdoors again. Here's a way to avoid becoming a precipitation prisoner.

Motivation

The most difficult part of being outside when it's rainy is getting there. It's incredible how many solid excuses I can come up with for why I should stay indoors when water dribbles from the sky. "I don't feel 100 percent" or "I have a half-bottle of wine to finish" work well.

What's really preventing me from heading out is a fear I'll be uncomfortable. More on how to work with that later. But the first, enormous step is pushing myself out the door. To incentivize getting outdoors in the rain, I'll bait myself into it — with a fun thing I can do when I get back. Perhaps dinner waiting in the slow cooker, or just a dry pair of clothes in the car followed by a trip to a coffee shop. A misery/coziness pairing can be appealing.

Rainy day costumes

We've all heard that annoying saying, "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad gear."

Anyone who has spent significant time in the rain, especially camping or backpacking, knows that's simply not true. With a sustained downpour, everything gets wet, unless you're wearing a tarp (not recommended).

You can watch spirits dampen in front of your eyes too. During a very wet backpacking trip with my stepdaughter this summer, she said, "I feel like right now we could be laughing or crying. And we're choosing laughing."

What, that doesn't make you want to get outside in the rain?

If it's a short trip like a walk or run, there's really nothing to worry about. A good raincoat of GoreTex or similar material works fine for a walk, and any waterproof shoe will hold its own. Often for runs, I'll wear running shoes and accept that my feet will be wet. I'll also throw on a pair of glove liners to buffer my hands since they tend to get cold and stay cold. There's no point in wearing a raincoat for a run — the lack of breathability makes sweat build up on the inside, and that's as unpleasant as it sounds.

I've found that biking on paved trails in the rain just means getting drenched, covered in sand, and disgusting. It would probably help if I would get a fender. In the meantime, I still bike in the rain, knowing that I'll need to leave most of my outer layers outside to shake off all the grit when they're eventually dry.

For longer stretches in the rain, it matters what gets and stays wet. "Cotton kills" is a rule of thumb: I don't wear it. I don't even bring it if I'm backpacking, except for maybe a T-shirt to sleep in. Down is also not advisable; once wet, it loses all loft and warmth. Synthetic down will still keep me warm, even if wet. But for someone like me, who needs a super-warm sleeping bag to be comfortable, I need down. I am very careful to make sure the bag doesn't get wet. I keep these kinds of items enshrined in layers of dry bags and plastic zip locks (for items such as socks and electronics).

With backpacking, I still prefer running shoes to hiking boots. Yes, my feet get wet. Yes, I go through socks pretty quickly and have to monitor blisters. I still find running shoes much more comfortable than hiking boots. At the end of the day, at camp, I always bring the lightest, plastic cloud shoes to treat my feet to: baby blue Crocs. Only the best and most fashionable footwear for yours truly.

Embrace it

At the end of the day, I have control over most things in my comfortable, climate-controlled world. Four walls and a roof keep me dry. I can turn up the heat with a knob. I type away on my laptop and use a phone for work every day. Rain never kept me indoors when I was a kid; it meant puddles. Now, as an adult, fun seems to be metered out in hours, elevation gains and losses, "steps" logged on an app. Any opportunity to just let go is rare, and rainy days provide, in a drenching way, this opportunity. Especially for those of us getting ready for a season of Tuesday Night Runs, we should start training ourselves to get outside no matter the weather.

Alli Harvey lives, works and plays in Anchorage.