Rain!

Rain hit the ground so lightly this morning I forgot about the forecasted storm until I stepped outside with Kona. I quickly returned to change into my fleece pants, rain jacket and mud shoes. I try to be the rain-or-shine-tough-runner, but I stood at the door for a minute to make sure the mist didn't turn into a downpour.

When we got to the trailhead, the rain came down steady but light. We were out earlier than usual, but the dark sky welcomed us to an empty trail. The hillsides were all ours.
It took Kona a few minutes to get her bearings in the wet weather. At first she hunkered, not sure about the rain that quickly soaked her coat. We rounded our second hill. Poor Kona's frolik grass had been bulldozed. Crews come through for brush clearance to remove fire fuel. Kona stayed hunkered without her grass as a distraction.
When we came to our first descent, the rain picked up. The sky pelted us from the side as my shoes quickly became saturated. I tightened the hood on my rain jacketed and looked down at Kona to see how she was handling the downpour. She had found grass and explored like the sun shined.
When we turned around to head uphill, we ran into a headwind. I tightened my hood even more and kept my head down. I peeked out at Kona. She ran with her tail up, but had flattened her ears to keep the water out of them. Just as I thought about cutting our run short, the heavy rain eased into a mist.

For the rest of our run, the rain alternated between sideways pelting and gentle misting. Kona's behavior is fairly weather proof. At one point she initiated a game of "I run away, then come back and you give me a treat. Then I do it again." Kona started this game during heavy rain. Each time she ran back to me for a treat, she had to squint to avoid the water that tried to pound into her eyes. She doesn't initiate this game often, so I wanted to reward her well, but I also tried to move us along before we melted from too much water.

We didn't see anyone. I picked up the pace when the rain picked up, but took Kona's initiative to explore. We stopped to check out the mini waterfalls that formed on the sides of the trails.

When we arrived at the car, my roomy fleece pants were so soaked that they stuck to me like cycling tights. Kona left paw prints on the car's seat. We steamed up the windows as I turned on the windshield wipers and blasted the defroster.