Still "Embracing" the Heat?

So how's that heat embrace working out for you? We're halfway into September--just a few days away from Fall, but you wouldn't know it if not for the calendar! True, the heat was late in its arrival this year, but on the flip side it doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon. Sigh...The other day Juli pointed out that her marathon is in less than 3 weeks...which means Chicago (Sarah and Jeff) is in 4 weeks, which means Kansas City (Jamie, Ginna, Mark, Zelda, the ghost of Zac, and myself) is in less than 5 weeks. Yikes! Maybe the folks running West Virginia (Kathy and Mike) and NYC (Susan and Laura) will catch a break, but our chances aren't looking so good. Supposedly there's a "cold front" coming through before this Saturday's long run, but I can't even think about that. I have to mentally prepare for yet another wet, squishy, salty, painful, drippy slog.

Yes, the fissures are forming. Just yesterday someone cracked and started F-bombing. Not going to say who, but I will say I am glad that for once it wasn't me. I've come so close to losing it on a few runs that, as I have now come to expect, ended badly. Where a run becomes a test of will to make it from land mark to land mark without walking. Or crying. Or asking a cyclist if you can borrow their phone to call home.

I had a customer the other day who just moved here from Indiana. She's training for the Dallas marathon and was telling me that after her 16 mile run she had to sleep all day! Normal. She said she had to resort to buying a water bottle! Normal. She said she had to stop and walk because she felt "weird". Normal. She said her friends back home couldn't possibly understand what she's going through. I told her that she'll enjoy our winters. She said they had no problems running in the winter. They just bundled up in their fleece. They run in fleece!

Not to say it's been all bad. We have acclimated to a point where we move on auto pilot with our bottles, electrolyte pills, cold snappy rags and body glide. We have attacked every cooler in our path like a pack of crazed raccoons. Just ask the woman who tried to shoo us away from one one morning. We have "sheep dogged" each other, making sure that we were all OK in case the heat was getting the better of one of us on that day.  I think we've all had a few long runs that we've loosely labeled as successes.

What we've yet to realize is how tough we have become, not just physically, but mentally, due to the tremendous amount of positive energy we have had to tap into repeatedly throughout the summer. We may not realize it until marathon day, but we WILL realize it! And this heat WILL end! I just wish it would hurry the f*&%#  up. Sorry! Crack!