A field report on whether I melt in the rain

Let the record show that I did not want to do this.

It was drizzling this morning. Not dramatically — just that persistent, smug Highveld drizzle that isn’t heavy enough to be a proper excuse but is wet enough to be thoroughly unpleasant. My position on the matter was clear and, I felt, reasonable: I melt in the rain. This is a well-documented condition. I have suffered from it my whole life.

My position did not carry the day.

So out I went, under protest, into the wet, to conduct the experiment. And I am here, dear reader, to deliver the findings with the exhausted dignity of a man who has been proven partly wrong.

Finding one: running in drizzle is exactly as unpleasant as I predicted. Wet socks. That specific cold-shoulder feeling. The general indignity of it. My complaints were valid.

Finding two: I did not, in fact, melt. I remained structurally intact throughout. At no point did any part of me dissolve. This was, I’ll admit, disappointing for my argument.

And here’s the annoying part — the part I’m including only because this journal is supposed to be honest: it was actually fine. Better than fine, even. My legs, still singing from leg day, got exactly the gentle movement they needed. Short, easy, walk-broken, 34 minutes of flushing out the stiffness. And there’s a genuinely useful lesson buried in the wet: Comrades is in June, I don’t get to choose the weather on the day, and a man who can only run in sunshine is a man with a fragile plan. So drizzle running is real training. Free practice for conditions I’ll definitely meet again.

I’d rather have learned this lesson indoors, dry, with a cup of coffee. But the road doesn’t work like that, and neither does June.

So: melting status, confirmed negative. Discomfort, confirmed real. Legs, loosened. Lesson, reluctantly absorbed.

That is all I am prepared to say about the rain.