In the movie Top Hat, Fred Astaire sang "Isn't it a lovely day to be caught in the rain." Mind you that he was standing underneath a gazebo with Ginger Rogers. Not running a 4-mile race.

Weather be damned, I ran in the adidas Run for the Parks on Sunday morning. And I achieved a new personal record! 41 minutes and 32 seconds - a 10:23 mile per minute pace. This is nearly 2 minutes faster from the 43:19 that I posted two weeks ago.

I'm glad that I participated in the race, especially since I wasn't sure if I was going to. The downpours on Saturday were torrential and the forecast said that they would continue on Sunday morning. So I waited to see what the weather would be up to. When I woke up, the rain had nearly stopped and it was just misting. Good enough, I thought. I packed up and made my way over to Central Park. When I got to the park at 9 it started raining again. I ducked inside my office building to use the restroom and wait out the rain. When it let up, I made my way over to the start area, near the bandshell. There the rain was continuing but it was light. Ten minutes before the start, the rain nearly stopped. And then two minutes before the start, here it came in torrents! But hey, I was already there, might as well run, right?

I joined around 3600 other hardcore runners, speeding through Central Park in the middle of a rainstorm. I'm told that this particular race usually draws around 10,000 people. I can't blame the vast majority for staying home but also thought it was cool that so many still decided to participate. Even though the rain made for a pretty miserable run (dodging and weaving through all sorts of puddles), I'm pleased that I ran almost two minutes faster than last time. Of course, rain is a good motivator to speed up and get out of there.

After the race, there was little socializing to do. Just get out of the rain and back onto the subway where a hot shower, change of clothes and a big lunch awaited me.