Days 19 and 20

Oh. My. God. I thought I left behind the death-like weather in Tennessee. Apparently it decided to follow me home. Yesterday I ran with a good friend, a recently graduated member from my high school team and we were going to do six miles but she wanted to do 5, So we compromised: we did five miles but we also had to go up the monster hill in the park. It was awesome having company, though our first mile was at 8min pace and over the run we slowed down, which was probably good because despite the fact that it was evening and the sun was going down, the air remained hot and humid and not conductive for trying to run long distances.

I shouldn't complain about yesterday though, since today was significantly worse. I was exausted by mile one. I stopped three times for water and made a friend named Beverly, who invited me into her house to cool off quickly. I love nice people. You know, I've never understood those runners who carry their water bottles around with them until today. That is no longer a lame or dumb thing to do. But, despite the fact that my body hates me right now for putting it through that long, toasty, humid hell at 9AM this morning, it will thank me later this summer. I'm sure of it. Tomorrow is a day off. Man, I am so excited for that.

Day 18

Before my run I checked out some road races in the area. There's one in Philadelphia on Sunday to benefit Melanoma research which I might run in. That was enough to get me pretty pumped up for my eight miles. I ended up running them a whole minute faster on average per mile compared to last week, which was awesome (ignoring the fact that last week was close to terrible. I ran in the middle of the day- a mistake, definitely, but since I had hydrated adequately, I think I ran alright. Nutrition has been off though. I'll work on that.