Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Four Miles in Iowa

I haven’t blogged about my longest run in Iowa yet (8 miles). I want to take a little time with it. It’ll end up a two-parter as my ‘adventure’ didn’t end with the run itself. 
I also want to go back to the route and collect pictures of the interesting sites I saw. (Unlike my amazing husband, I don’t take good pictures as I run).
So today, I’m going to blog about this morning’s run. It proved both challenging and fun! 
I only had 4 miles to go today so I thought if I started at 8am, I’d be back before it got too hot. I checked the temperature before I left the house and it read “71”. That sounded great!
I got outside and it felt like 80! Amazing what a little humidity will do! But it was much cooler than my 8 mile run and I was loaded up nice and good with electrolyte fluids. I was good to go. So off I went. 
I made sure I covered myself from head to toe with bug spray. Yuck! That stuff smells awful and tastes worse! I felt weird using it while I am running to raise funds for cancer research. I can’t imagine the chemicals in the bug repellant being good for me. But the flip side is getting so many mosquito bites that at worse I get malaria or at best too many itchy bumps that I am too miserable to run. So I took my chances. 
As usual, I headed through my parents’ neighborhood on my way to one of the trails that snake all over the area through beautiful wooded areas. I love running in the woods. But today I decided to by pass the woods. Even though I had the bug repellant, we had such a storm that came through last night, not only would the bugs be particularly plentiful but they’d be angry too! Besides that, there would be low spots where there’d be standing water and I wanted to run rather than wade today. 
So I decided to do a loop around the neighborhood near the wood trail. It was fun because I didn’t know exactly where the road was going to take me.  The doubt and the attention needed to keep me on course made the run more interesting. 
I was feeling the heat more in the second half of the run. But I finished just a little slower than my usual “California” (i.e., non-heat, non-humid, no-bugs conditions) pace. :) 
Due to the unplanned route I finished several blocks before my parents’ house. Which was fine with me as it allowed me to do a great cool down walk and that’s how I met Buster and his mom. 
I was rounding the last corner and I saw a lady in a bright pink top with a super cute boxer in toe. (Actually, she may argue the boxer was toeing her)!
Those of you who know me know I had to stop to say “Hi”. I found out the boxer’s name was Buster. What a perfect name for a Boxer! He was quite excited to meet a new person. I could only imagine what I smelled like to him with the awful sweat and bug spray combo I had going on. But I guess he liked what he smelled because he gave me lots of doggy kisses! :)
His mom was super nice and I forgot to ask her name (some day I will learn my manners). So I know her now as ‘Buster’s mom’. :)
We chatted and she was kind enough to ask if I was training for something. She must have noticed my “Team in Training” hat. That, or she knew that only people who are training for something important would be running out in that heat! :)
So I filled her in on my marathon and why I was running. She mentioned her and her husband was considering a half-marathon in January. (I assumed she meant a ‘destination run’ as it is near impossible to run in Iowa in winter! Check out my post from Dec 15, 2008 for some insight on running in Iowa in the winter!) 
We also chatted about running with the TNT group. I so enjoyed chatting with her. I could have chatted all day with her if it wasn’t for the fear of melting. 
I sure hope she goes for the half. I could tell she could do it no problem.  And I’d love for anyone to experience the joy I have training for something bigger than they’ve done before! 
Go Buster’s Mom Go!
Dad was waiting for me on the lawn when I finally made my way back home. Sweat was literally RAINING off me! I could tell by the look on my Dad’s face he was grossed out! 
“Hey Jill?”
“Yeah Dad?”
“Can you promise me to take a shower before you sit on .... or touch anything?”
“Sure Dad.” :)

1 comment:

Brian said...

Hey Jill,

If you think the weather is too hot up there in Iowa, you can always try Texas! 8^p

Brian