A feat of mental strength

When I stepped outside Sunday morning to test the temperature, I discovered good news and bad news.

The good news was that a T-shirt and shorts were completely weather-appropriate.

The bad news was that it was drizzling, and I had to be at work in two hours — meaning it was either run now or hope I was committed enough to go after work.

As I've admitted before, I'm a wimp about rain. Getting an iPhone has only made this worse, because it's a crutch: "I don't want to get my expensive high-tech phone wet, you know?"

This time, though, I managed to kick my own crutch out from underneath me (hooray!). I told myself that if the rain's pace picked up — I couldn't tell it was raining from inside — I could just turn back. But on the first springlike day in at least half a week, I would regret staying home.

So I went and was rewarded with:

* Very little rain. My shirt was merely speckled, and my smartphone was never in any real danger.

* A smug sense of superiority. The same girl who bundles up in a blanket at her office desk was out on a windy, overcast day in shorts and a T-shirt, while other Jordan Creek Trail runners had long sleeves, windbreakers, earmuffs, even sweatpants on.

* Shiny stats. I took a break midway through the speedy portion of my tempo run (YES I KNOW I WENT OUT TOO FAST), but each half was almost 1.5 miles at a 8:28 pace.

The fact that I even ran might not seem all that impressive, but I'm kind of a baby about the weather. I spend a great deal of time at weather.com, looking at the hourly forecast to find when it will be driest and how many of my long-run fears — heat, humidity and wind — I can avoid.

To deliberately head out into a condition I dislike took willpower.

Apparently I have willpower.