Maybe I'm a Winter Runner?

July is hot.  And humid.  And it sucks to run in.  There was a point today where I thought my face was literally going to catch fire and the purple didn't go away for about an hour.  I don't think I like running in the heat.

This is funny to me because I prefer the heat to the cold in just about every other scenario in life.  In fact, I usually feel like I can't function in cold at all!  But while hitting the pavement today I was longing for that frigid day in December where it was much easier to breathe, where I knew I wasn't going to overheat, where even though my fingers were frozen the rest of my body was still plenty warm.

It dawned on me today that while I started running last summer, I never really ran outside until September!  Sure, there were the 2 color runs but the weather was nowhere near as hot as it is now and definitely not as humid.  I spent all of my early training days on a treadmill in my air-conditioned basement, and now I think I'm paying for it!

Today's run was on a different-ish route around my house.  There really aren't too many roads so no matter what I'm going to end up doing what I've done before, but today I started in a different direction than I normally do and went out to one of the main roads - Lucky for me it had a sidewalk!  Less than a mile in I could already feel the heat in my face and was struggling to breathe. I wasn't sure how far I would make it and I really didn't have a route in mind so I figured I'd play it by ear.  I would have liked to have completed 3.1 miles because I have another race next weekend, but after I hit the 2 mile mark I knew I didn't have another mile in me and headed home.

The good news for today is that I did the 2.25 miles all running - I did not walk at all and so that's an improvement from last week's race!  I completed my first mile in 10:03 and my average pace was 10:21.  You can see all of the stats on MapMyRun.  Not my fastest by any means, but not my slowest either!  So I'm getting there.  I need some more work before I'm back at last year's pace but I'm not embarrassed by today's performance, lol. 

Also, I have a new appreciation for Gatorade.  With all of my past runs I have done strictly water and then I grab something light after the run, like a banana or a granola bar or something.  I've never really tried the whole sports drink thing before, never really needed to.  But for my past 2 runs, I was too overheated to even think about eating anything.  At the race last week they were handing out cups of Gatorade at the finish line and I was more than happy with that.  And again today when I got back home, I couldn't think about food but instead reached for the Gatorade.  So I'm a fan of it in this oppressive heat!  I never in a million years thought I'd be looking forward to a winter run, lol!!