The Anti-Running Runner

I have yet to blog about the last races I did before summer. Next time, I'll blog about The Claw Run 10 miles, which turned out to be quite a wonderful adventure with a big surprise at the end. After that, I'll blog about the Police Appreciation Run 10K where I had a great time with my hubby. In the meantime, I was thrilled to run 15K (about 9.3 miles) on Wednesday because I haven't gone that far in a while. The summer heat has been ferocious, so it's difficult to go more than 3 or 4 miles at a time. I still refuse to get up early enough to avoid the sun, so I have to suffer for it when I do run. I've been fairly consistent, running every other day between 2 and 6 miles. My neighborhood is okay, but I like some variety in scenery. I searched how far it was to the nearest beach (Treasure Island). A round trip was about 15K. I decided to run part of the route on Monday to see how it felt. Much of it was beautiful with lots of cloud cover, which I appreciated. I...

First of all, I must thank Jesus for getting me across that finish line. There was a man who collapsed and was obviously hurt, and I pray that he's okay. But it reminds me how careful I need to be in the heat. And this was a HOT race. I threw water over my head at almost every water station, and usually more than one cup at a time. Still, I was sweating a ton (not like me) and my face felt like it was on fire. My husband and his coworkers and his coworker's wife all ran, and they all did awesome. I guess I did pretty well, too, but I felt awful the last half of the race because of the heat. True, 79 degrees is not so bad for Florida, but I just ran in 40 degrees at the Rock N Roll Half a few weeks earlier. It hasn't been very hot while I've been training, and honestly, I haven't been training very consistently in the midst of all these races. My biggest problem, however, was starting too fast. I went out with the group, and I immediately felt the pac...

Next Saturday, I'll be doing the Gasparilla 15K with my hubby, his coworker, and his coworker's wife. I'm excited to be doing less than a half this time. I'm also excited that my husband's coworker talked him into the race because he's not a fan of road races, which he considers boring, so he rarely runs them with me. Today I plan to run around 6 or 7 miles, and maybe a few shorter runs next week. I'm enjoying the cooler winter weather and I hope it will stick around longer this year. By April last year, it was hot and didn't really cool down again until the end of October. Don't get me wrong, I love the heat, but training in it can be a challenge. The following Saturday after that, Team Hea and Bria will be doing the Race for the Greys 5K. I'm looking forward to that and still debating whether to bring Lance along. He's a good runner, but I worry about how he'll behave in a large crowd of dogs if hubby is not able to come. So we...