it's too hot for runnin' y'all

hello from durham north carolina where its humid as heck and tempuratures are soaring up into the high nineties.

this is, as you can imagine, less than ideal running weather.

last night i decided that it was essential for me to do some running this weekend. i was looking at the schedules and since i got trapped in astoria and missed a long run last weekend, and with all the IT band issues, i was feeling a bit behind. i decided damn the heat, i can do this! i will simply get up early saturday and do my 8 miles and be done with it.

easier said than done my friends, easier said than done.

i forwent wine with dinner, and drank tons and tons of water friday evening. i had finally went out and bought a fuel belt yesterday because i figured that no matter how short or long i was running, down in this hot hot land i was going to need to carry water with me. i made a peanut butter 'n' honey sandwich which i packed up in a baggie and put near our bed so i could get up early, chug some water and go back to sleep. i always need to eat about 2 hours before i run, and we'd been doing so much running around getting read for the guests saturday that getting up before 6 just was too painful. so my plan was to:

go to bed by midnight
wake up at 6 - eat sandwich, drink water
get up at 7:30 - get dressed, fill water bottles, etc
get out the door by 8 to "beat the heat"

my plan first went awry when we got to bed closer to 1am. this made me wimper to myself a bit. we were working on pulled pork, some cakes, and mint julep for the next day and things, as usual, took a little longer than expected. good sleep was then thwarted by having to pee almost every hour throughout the night - clearly i had over hydrated a bit. the eating of the sandwich went fine but when i finally got out of bed at 7:30 i knew immediately that i was going to have peanut butter heartburn. uuuuuug. i popped two tums and hoped for the best.

i walked out of the house into the warm, moist air. at first it didn't feel so terrible but as soon as i left the confines of the shady lane that my man's family lives on and one little sunbeam hit me, i felt the magnitude of the warmth and the sweating began.

i had mapped out a little 4.5 mile route and my plan was to do two of these loops. except it was hot. and i was melting. and it was only 8am! i tried to talk myself out of the grumbling but the heat was impossible to ignore. sweat dripped from everywhere. in less than 5 minutes the back of my neck was coated and my pony tail was soon damp. i was hot and miserable but still determined (this was probably...15 minutes into my run).

and then i got lost.

i got lost in hilly territory with a vauge sense of where i needed to go and not many people out on the road to ask directions. no cell phone. i tried to navigate by my wits and succeeded in running down two dead ends, the second of which was up a hill. i swore and turned around and down another road. finally there was a lady on a walk! i asked how to get back to the main drag and she told me to go straight. oooooof course.

i had planned out a bigger loop but as i got to where i could turn back to my boyfriend's...i couldn't go on. i was drenched through, ridiculously hot and miserable. i promised myself that i would run a bunch of longer-ish runs this week to make up for it but there was no way i was continuing on. the heat had sucked the energy right out of me.

i got back and my boy, bless his heart, asked if i had done my 8 miles. i just laughed and started chugging cold water. red-exercise-face was in full effect, more a terrible shade of purple than red. i stayed a good deep pink a good 20 minutes beyond my shower and knew that if i was going to attempt running in this heat again, 6am was going to be necessary.

the saddest thing was when i mapped my run, which i thought to be about 4.5 miles, it was only 3.5. ~sigh~

today's mileage: 3.5
time run: 45m
season mileage to date: 58.3