New rule for Mohawk Valley Girl: No more 10Ks in August.
I am sitting in my stuffy house (although the fan and open door are helping), typing on the laptop (with all ten fingers, yes!), late once again for my Friday post (Lame Post Friday, but never mind that), and I wrote the preceding sentence and the paragraphs that follow earlier this week, so I shall type them in while sipping coffee (making a few edits as I go, I add in the interests of accuracy). Then I shall return to my pre-race jitters.
One might think that as I have run the Boilermaker 15K in July more than once that hot weather running would hold no terrors for me. My first thought was to say, “That’s different.” I guess it is, since the final month of training for the Boilermaker takes place in June, which is sometimes not as hot. However, in one respect it is similar: almost every time I run the Boilermaker I vow I am not going to do it again. What does that tell you about me? Seriously, what does it tell you? It just confuses me.
My problem is that for the past week we have had one damn sticky heat wave. This puts quite the damper on my last week of preparation runs (see what I did there? Damp, because humidity is wet? Oh well, I thought it was funny). Additionally I am currently working from 5 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. No cool-ish early morning runs for me.
I determinedly put on running clothes and braved the heat and humidity Tuesday. Oh, it was bad. Every step of that run was a chore. I could not remember why I ever liked running in the first place. However, I made it for two miles and even ran up a couple of hills (not big ones). I did not even finish my usual cool-down walk. A voice in my head said, “Nobody said you had to walk for ten minutes.” I felt that was a good point.
I duplicated the effort on Thursday, minus the hills. I admit it was marginally less heinous.
And here I am on Saturday morning, feeling as usual that coffee is heaven, up in time to eat something nutritious and let it digest before the run (probably a whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter). Today we are supposed to get relief from the heat and humidity. Yay! My 10K is in Little Falls, part of their Canal Days festivities. I hope after running 10Ks I have enough oomph leftover to enjoy some of them. It would make a good Scattered Saturday Post (which we all know I may be typing in Sunday morning). As always, I hope you’ll stay tuned.
Mohawk Valley Girl 