Lunchtime Afternoon Run Delight

WILL NOT EVER DO THAT AGAIN UNTIL FALL.

Jodi and I met at Bear Creek park for an afternoon lunchtime run since I have plans for dinner at 7 p.m. and she can't get off work early enough for me. We haven't ran since last Wednesday and I was feeling icky, boingy, and all around gross. I welcomed the run in any conditions and it looked like it would be stormy, lightening, thundering...you know hurricane wind conditions. Okay, not really. In fact, we wanted that, but instead we got floody, hot, muggy, humid, smelly, and any other gross adjective you can fit in here.

To start things off, it was raining and we were discussing through our car windows (with the windows rolled up) about not doing the run. She was on the phone and couldn't call me. After about five minutes, it calmed and I wasn't too worried about it. I did some leg stretches, while she was on the call. We then started off with a walk, while she was still on the call and planned to run after the huge flooded part. I thought I cleared it, but then I hit a huge unavoidable puddle that was ankle deep. I completely forgot my computerized keys were on my shoes. Whoopsy Daisy. I immmediately tried to dry them off and then put them into my sports bra for safe keeping. Finally, Jodi got off the phone and then we started running long before the 1 mile marker where we usually start running. The storms were scary, but still stayed to the side of us. As we rounded the corner, the sun came out and in full force. It was hot and humid. It's not like other Northern or Western states where storms cool down. In Texas, it's the oppposite. It turns WAY MORE humid and 20 times more mosquitos come out after a rainstorm. It's actually worse than a summer hot day in the middle of the afternoon. By the 1/2 mile marker, I was feeling it. I even noticed that Jodi was breathing heavier than usual. In fact, sometimes I think she is a robot, because she doesn't ever sound like she's breathing heavy or even feeling it. Not today. Today, I found out she was human.

When we got to the bathrooms by the marker showing that we did 1 mile, we hit a wall of heat and humidity. It's like when you are standing behind a muffler when a car has been riding around in the heat all day. It's like right before you get on the plane and you get that heat coming off of the fuel. It's that kind of heat and that disgusting. And I felt about 3 walls that we hit before Jodi had to stop to use the restroom. While I waited, I did some chair ups (not sure what to call them, but you work your arms) and I hit the monkey bars. I didn't know what to expect; I haven't been on monkey bars since I was a kid. It was fun and a nice little exercise. Jodi came out right when I was finishing and did the same thing (only she's tiny and it was hard for her to reach up).

After our little monkey bar exercise, we started running again. At this point, the heat is bad and we had already decided to not even go to 2 miles. We decided to just make it back to our cars (about 1 1/2- 1 3/4 miles total). We started out good, but quickly deterioted in a puddle of mud. I could barely keep going and said that we would start walking (and continue walking back to the car) at this driveway point. We also decided to add the monkey bars and possible pullups to our running when we are out here again.

Now, this run was by far the worst that I have ever done and I ran during the 5 O'Clock African Heat time period. But on this run, I could barely make the mileage that we did and I know that I can run more than 1 1/2 miles before I feel like dying. Even though this run was awful, it still proved to be the most rewarding yet, because we got to see things that aren't normally out (smarter people weren't running). A normally noctornal racoon was digging through the trash and we got some pictures. However, the best part of all was seeing a family of deers (called a herd, I checked) running through the park. Normally, you would just see 1, maybe 2, but not a whole herd. We actually stopped and watched them, because you could tell that something was up since they kept looking back. After about 5 minutes, the stoner deer came running out to meet the others. It was really cool. Hopefully, Jodi's cameraphone pictures turned out somewhat decently.