Chasing Shade

I may have used that headline before. If so, sorry. But I’m back to All Boilermaker All The Time with another post about a preparatory run.

I’ve been tapering off this week, not pushing myself too hard. I remember when I was on the swim team in high school (roughly a hundred years ago), we went into a taper at the end of the season. Now I was the opposite of athletic in high school but joined the swim team because my friend was on it. I pretty much hated it. The girls in the slow lane, where I was naturally assigned to work out, were snotty and mean. And the not athletic thing really worked against me. Still, I didn’t get kicked off and I love to swim. As with many things, it had its moments.

So after struggling, struggling with workouts that were too hard and fast for me, the taper was sweet relief. The more athletic girls had loads of excess energy. I just felt less inclined to burst into tears.

And so it is this week. I’m running shorter lengths of time. I’m maintaining a leisurely pace. My last major hill was Monday. I can’t say I’ve found it sweet relief, though. A front of heat and humidity is moving through the Mohawk Valley, and I have to say I don’t like it much.

At least I’m not running at four in the afternoon. You would think getting out between 6 and 7 a.m. would be before the heat of the day. Not so much.

I decided that this morning I would run no hills at all. It was 6:13 when I started out. By all indications, it should have been a delightful run.

I don’t know how the sun gets to be so bright and hot that early in the morning. I quickly found that it wasn’t that bad in the shade. I had started out with a couple of different plans on where to run. I discarded both of them and chose which street and which side of the street based on where I could find the most shade.

I was soon twisting and turning through residential streets wondering how a forty minute run could feel as long as an hour and twenty minute run. I resolutely refused to look at my watch every sixty seconds. That helped.

I noted flowers and lawn decorations as I ran. That helped, too. One front lawn had a profusion of yellow day lilies. Yes, the word “profusion” popped into my head as I saw them. My mom gave me some yellow day lily bulbs. I’ll have to get those in the ground soon.

At one point a lovely cooling breeze flowed over me. Aaaahhh! It felt like a breeze off a body of water. I knew there was a stretch of river or canal nearby, but I didn’t think I was close enough to reap any real benefits.

I stopped very briefly to pet a cute dog. I would have liked to stop briefly at the spring, but I hadn’t run in that direction. I usually only stop for a drink on the really long runs anyways. I haven’t even taken water during either of the 5Ks I’ve run. I’ll probably follow the good advice of drinking water whenever offered on the Boilermaker. If I feel inclined to burst into tears at the end of that race, I’d like to have sufficient hydration to do so.

I felt pretty OK after my run. Dare I say, ready for the Boilermaker? I may also have solved my where to park before, where to go afterwards problem. I’m sure I’ll write a major post about the big day. Stay tuned.