I was fully-clothed. I jumped in anyway.

We avoid getting dirty and wet as adults. But science suggests it's good for us physically and cognitively. Here are 3 ways to channel your inner 'I don't care' kid.

Warmup

Maybe it was the heat. Or my two-week work trip away from the human and animal I love most. Or lack of sleep.

I was running Friday morning on the already steamy Promenade de la Croisette in France, staring at the sea I hadn’t dipped a toe in since landing four days earlier. My 8-hour flight back to New York departed in a few hours.

Finally, the mobs of attendees at the Cannes Lions Festival had vacated the beaches. Our event space at The Wall Street Journal was getting broken down — as were those of Yahoo!, Spotify, Amazon and dozens of other big brands.

Finished with official work duties, I was decked out in a long sleeve shirt (for sun protection), running tights, shoes, sports bra, socks, hat, sunglasses, etc.

Not exactly swimming gear.

Then I saw this.

And without much thought (except to hold my cellphone above my head)…

Splash.

Post

Like most kids I knew growing up, I played a lot in the dirt. Picked up wiggly earthworms. Ran barefoot in the grass. Got sand in my bathing suit making drippy sandcastles with my Dad. Played in the rain without much thought.

Then, in what feels like a finger snap … I was an adult.

Less going outside. Not a lot of playing in the dirt. Didn’t care for getting my shoes muddy. Or clothes wet. Plus, I had gadgets in my pockets, those screens I stared at for hours each day.

And some piece of spontaneity kind of withered away.

My discovery of obstacle course racing, thankfully, changed that. (If you’re new to this newsletter, fully story in my book Not Too Late.)

This sport that I fell in love with in my late 40s returned me to the joys of not caring about being clean and dry.

And it reopened avenues for adventure, play, a brush with the unexpected — and good health.

Indeed, plenty of scientific reviews suggest that getting dirty plays a real role in improving our physical and mental wellbeing, particularly when it comes to the human microbiome. (See this nice summary: “Get Dirty. It’s Surprisingly Good for Your Health.”

So, without further ado, here’s a Not Too Late challenge:

1. Get really dirty.

The second Spartan Race I ever ran dumped me into a calf-deep field of mud within the first 5 minutes. It splattered up across my nose, shoulders. The guy in front of me lost his shoe and then plunged face-first into the muck trying to retrieve it.

There was only one way to the finish line — and that was through the mud.

Something in my 47-year-old soul loosened that day as I ran around getting grimier than I’d been since childhood. As I wrote in Not Too Late: “Being filthy is freeing ….”

Fear of getting dirty is both a real and metaphorical obstacle to getting where we want to go. The longer I raced, the more I realized that getting “through the mud” was a metaphor for all sorts of things, be it digging into problems at work, fixing a relationship issue or enduring a health challenge.

To get to the other side, you’ve got to go through the muck.

Next time you go for a walk or run and think about going around that puddle, try splashing through it instead.

2. Run or walk in the rain (singing optional) — or jump in the water fully-clothed.

As the poet laureate, Billy Collins, wrote in one of his most famous works: “Nobody here likes a wet dog.”

And nobody likes to be wet in their clothes, at least once they grow up.

Yet, here’s what we’re missing by staying dry:

• A morning walk on a typically over-crowded trail, now blissfully empty because of the inclement weather.

• Making our dog happy because his walk doesn’t get skipped.

• A quick, cooling dunk in the ocean or pond on a day we didn’t plan for it.

• Seeing a double rainbow appear on the horizon, invisible to those who stayed inside.

This morning, I ran for two hours on mountain trails in the rain. We’re in the middle of an awful heat wave. But I stayed cool, avoided crowds, smelled the damp earth and didn’t skip my workout.

It took an extra two minutes to scrub my shoes and throw my clothes in the dryer when I got back.

Totally. Worth. It.

3. Be OK with sand in your shoes (or pants).

The day I buried my 15-year-old golden retriever, Dolly, my soul felt severed. We’d driven her body to my parents’ property on the coast of North Carolina where my father dug her grave with his tractor.

Once she’d been settled into her final spot of rest, head eternally facing the river and favorite polar bear toy snug by her side, we went for a lonely walk on the cold, windy beach.

Beachgoers these days come outfitted with gear like they plan to live there. Blankets, coolers, lounge chairs and canopy sun shades the size of a Manhattan studio apartment.

We had nothing with us that day. It was too cold to go barefoot. But we wanted to walk the shore where Dolly had raced up and down, digging holes, swimming bravely in the surf for so many years.

Some of her happiest moments.

Quickly, our sneakers filled with sand. We kept going. When we reached a point of land where we’d often sat with Dolly, tossing her ball for hours, I didn’t want to leave.

So, we lay down and watched the sky. Our pants got dirty. Our hair got gritty. But for a moment, the heaviness receded.

And we said goodbye.

Cooldown

Thanks for reading. As always, find something you love. Dig in. Stick with it when things get hard — and get a little dirty and wet along the way.

Wendy