Running in the rain can be a challenge. Some simple risk management techniques can be useful to deal with situations with a lot of rain.
Recently, Germany has been getting a lot of rain and I have been trying to schedule my runs around the rain storms. For those familiar with risk management as defined by the Project Management Institute, there are a few different options to handle a risk once it is identified. The four options are risk avoidance, acceptance, transfer and mitigation
Risk Transfer
Risk transfer is when you can pass the risk on to someone else or another company. This is great for IT projects, but not really an option as a runner. It would be great to have someone else complete my run for me, but that doesn’t actually help me with my training.
Risk Avoidance
Risk avoidance is a technique which I have been practicing the past few weeks. I research the hourly weather charts and then try to calculate the best times to run with the lowest probability of ending up in a rain storm. This reduces the chances that I will be in a rainstorm and getting struck by lightening. Of course not running would allow me to completely avoid the risk, but just like risk transfer, would not let me train for my goal of running a half marathon
Risk Reduction
Risk reduction is minimizing the impact of a risk. By wearing proper rain clothing I am able to minimize the impact of running in the rain. I also try to reduce the risk by adhering to best practices of running in rain storms to ensure that I don’t get struck by lightening.
Risk Acceptence
Risk acceptance is knowing that when the risk occurs that there is nothing else to do. When I was five miles into my ten mile run it started to pour rain the other week. I just embraced the rain and ran the five miles back to my start point. Sometimes just accepting the rain on your run is the best approach.
