There's a line in the first Harry Potter book that I love, something about Ron, Harry and Hermione's first fight against a monster together. I can't find my copy of the book, but it said something like "there's nothing like fighting a snaggle-toothed monster to make you friends for life."

I inadvertently discovered a parallel. There's nothing like... embarking on a late-morning run only for the sky to turn and start pouring, rejecting a friend's offer to drive you to a dry spot to instead continue running through what becomes a drenching sideways rain for miles and miles, jumping and darting around street puddles, accelerating despite an added weight from all the water sloshing in your shoes, becoming so wet you can't get any wetter, making it four miles of a five mile misery run only to have a speeding bus splash you with a wave of water fast and heavy enough to temporarily blind you, nearly getting hit by a car and finally, finally making it to dryness... to make you friends for life.

"This must be what waterboarding feels like," said my friend Reeve. He, Brandi and I will at least have this bonding experience to remember forever. And it's instructional. It's the last time I'll ever try to outrun a storm system.