People always think running in the rain would be the worst possible thing ever.

That is until they actually do it.

Running in the rain accomplishes a number of things. Not only does it make you feel like a super intense runner and super hardcore, it can wash away anger, it can fill you with joy, it can take away sadness...like I said, it accomplishes a lot of things. And hey, no one can see your sweat, so that's a plus as well.

I used to hate the idea of running in the rain. I remember sitting in class in high school waiting for an announcement on a rainy day that cross country practice would be cancelled. But who was I kidding? Cross country practice never gets cancelled. If it rains, you run. If it thunders, you run faster.

The first little bit of a rainy run isn't really fun. You go from being warm and dry to being sopping wet and cold. But then you start to adjust and it becomes fun.

But those rainy day runs were some of the most beautiful runs and some of the runs where I felt the best. Splashing through puddles, getting raindrops in your eyes, having your shoes and clothes waterlogged but the time you get done...what could be better?

A few weekends ago, I woke up one morning without looking outside and got dressed to go for a run. I came downstairs and realized that it was raining. For a split second, I thought about just not going. I hadn't been for a run in the rain in a while and I had forgotten the beauty of it.

About midway through my run I began to think about the idea of running in the rain, which led me to writing this article. I felt better running that day than I had in weeks. I can confidently say that the majority of runners feel the same way as I do about running in the rain...they feel the same way about feeling "intense", they feel the same way about it being a good thing to do when you're angry, they agree that it can make you feel happy. And they even agree that some of their best runs have been completed in horrible conditions. I thought that this could parallel to life.

Sometimes our circumstances are awful. Not just weather circumstances, but life circumstances in general. We live in a broken world full of a lot of things that could go wrong. But the thing is, we can't let those circumstances define us. If a runner decided that every time it rained, they weren't going to run, they wouldn't reach their goals like they had planned. So think of whatever circumstance you may be dealing with in your life that is less than ideal. You can't let that circumstance steal your joy. You can't let it keep you down. You just have to keep running through life and realize that your situation is what you make of it.

Keep this mindset, and I can guarantee by the time you've been dealing with your struggle long enough, you'll have a brand new outlook on life and realize that even when things get hard (when it "rains"), you can still make the best of it (you can have a good "run").