Training for 7/29/16

Well, I just learned something surprising. Remember Punchy, the cartoon guy from the old Hawaiian Punch ads?

He’s been updated:

HE’S WEARING A RED HAT. It was a hat the whole time. I always thought he had stupid red HAIR! I mean, he was offering people a “nice Hawaiian punch” and then blasting them right in the face. Someone like that would have hair like that.

Anyway… the heatwave this week did something nothing else has been able to do in a long time. It got my ass out of bed and running first thing in the morning every day for five straight days!

Every time I thought about putting it off until “later,” I’d remember how hot it already was and how hot it was going to get, and how I couldn’t leave Pepper home alone anyway because of the no AC thing.

Today was technically a rest day, but since I didn’t run Sunday when I was supposed to, I ran today.

I didn’t go out until 7 a.m., the latest I’ve started my run all week. It was overcast, but still warm and humid. I did a sweaty lap around the 5.5-mile loop.

This weekend, I have an 11-miler and another 5-miler on the schedule. No races. I’m not sure what else we’re doing. My family’s two-week condo rental in Ocean City starts today, so maybe we’ll wind up at the beach at some point. There’s also a NASCAR race in Pocono on Sunday.

Training for 7/28/16

Yesterday, Clark got an appointment set up to replace the air conditioning. The soonest they could do it is Monday, at which point we will have been without it for more than a week. Oh well, at least there’s some light at the end of the sweltering tunnel now.

Side note: I just spent a lot of time on the Wiktionary entry for the word “soon” to make sure “soonest” is actually a word. It sounds like it’s not, but it is.

This morning, I went out for my run after I fed Pepper his breakfast. It went about like they all have this week. Another hot, humid morning. No rain shower this time either. I did a lap around the 4.5-mile loop.

Training for 7/27/16

Yesterday, Pepper and I spent the day holed up in the bedroom. I only ventured out of it to get something to eat or let Pep out to pee.

In the evening, it felt coolish enough out in the living room, if I laid directly in front of the fan, to watch some TV. It was still about 90 degrees though. For some reason, Pepper thought this was a great time to snuggle up with my lower legs.

I don’t get his logic, but whatever.

Clark wound up staying in Pennsylvania overnight. I didn’t know what I was going to do with Pepper when I wanted to go run this morning.

I only had a 3-miler on the schedule, so I figured if I got up early enough it wouldn’t be too hot for him to go with me. I set an alarm for 6 a.m. but didn’t need it because Pepper woke me up 15 minutes before it went off, needing to go out to pee.

When he came back inside, I put him in his harness, much to his horror, and put myself in some running clothes, and we hit the road.

I’d checked the weather before we left: 77 degrees, 100 percent humidity, overcast. No mention of rain. We’d barely made it past the neighbor’s house when I heard what sounded like raindrops hitting the corn stalk leaves. Then I felt them.

It rained on us the whole way, and it felt great! I mean, it was still warm and humid, but the rain helped a lot. It turned out to be an almost enjoyable run.

We got back home. By the time I’d given Pepper his breakfast, the rain had stopped. In fact, the sun had started to come out. That was one perfectly-timed totally random rain shower.

Clark got a quote on a new AC system yesterday. He was going to try to shop around and see if he could get one cheaper anywhere, since he works for an industrial refrigeration company, but this morning he said he changed his mind and will tell whoever gave him that quote to go ahead and order it. Maybe we’ll have AC again by the end of the week.

Training for 7/26/16

Well, our air conditioning saga continues. The service guy got here late yesterday afternoon. He and Clark fiddled with the thing for an hour. Final conclusion: The compressor is dead, which means the entire system has to be replaced. We’re supposed to get a quote today, and then it’ll be installed sometime later this week.

In other words, it is still 9,000 degrees in our freaking house, and will be for the foreseeable future.

When Clark broke the news to me yesterday, I was already on the edge, having spent the entire day planted in front of a box fan that was putting out increasingly hot air (it hit 95 degrees in the living room), with a dog who seemed to think it would make it feel cooler if he breathed right in my face and slobbered all over me. The only thing keeping me sane was the thought the damn air conditioning would be back on by the evening.

So that didn’t help. And then Clark handed me a package that had come in the mail. I opened it and found… the cold weather thermal running tights I’d ordered last week.

I busted out laughing and flung them across the room. Those are the LAST thing I need right now!

Anyway, one of Clark’s coworkers had a brand new window unit he said we could borrow, so Clark picked it up and we installed it in our bedroom window. It’s not very big, so the bedroom is the only room in the house that’s inhabitable right now, but it’s better than nothing.

After we got that thing cranking, we went to Cambridge so we could eat dinner somewhere that wasn’t so hot it made it impossible to feel hungry.

Except for the Jeep, all of our (running) vehicles have manual transmissions, but Pepper tries to rest his head on the driver’s right arm anyway. Then he gets annoyed when we shift. And yes, we both let Pepper sit in the front passenger seat when the other one’s driving.

We went to RAR Brewing’s tasting room, since they allow dogs inside, had a couple beers and got lobster rolls from Rock Lobstah across the street.

By the time we got home, the window unit had cooled down the bedroom, and we all went straight to bed.

Clark had to drive up to Pennsylvania today for work. I wouldn’t be able to take Pepper with me on my run, because it’d be too hot, and I wouldn’t be able to leave him home in the utility room, because it’d be too hot, or in the bedroom, because he’d definitely let himself out and leave the door open. So I got up at 5 a.m. to run before Clark had to leave.

We got another strong storm last night, and when I got up, it was all the way down to 73 outside (still 88 in the house though, because Clark got up and shut all the windows when it started pouring.) However, the humidity was at 100 percent.

I went out to do a lap around the 5.5-mile loop. I didn’t listen to my music because it was still dark out (I know that statement doesn’t really make any sense, but anyway.) As I started out down the road, I could hear this scraping and dragging noise. I thought a farmer was messing with the control panel for the irrigation system, but there was no one there. I was starting to freak out until I finally caught a glimpse of a shadow in one of the neighbor’s yard — it was just my neighbor dragging his trash can out to the road for pick up. Phew! I hate running in the dark!

Two miles into the run, I had to use the bathroom. Big surprise. I made a stop in a corn field. It’s 5:30 a.m., I’m two miles from home, drenched in sweat and pooping in a dark corn field. It was one of those moments that makes me wonder what I’m doing haha.

A mile and a half later, I ran up on a woman out walking her two dogs. She said something about how early I was running today, and for some reason I blurted out that I didn’t even have air conditioning to look forward to after I finished my run, because ours died. I guess I just felt like complaining! She looked sufficiently horrified by our first-world nightmare. I felt better. This DOES suck!

Less than half a mile from home, I had to use the bathroom again. Gah! There were no corn fields or woods, and I absolutely could not hold on until I got home, so I hopped a fence along someone’s property (nowhere near their yard or house) and ran into some bushes. Geez.

I finally made it home, just as the sun was coming up. I went in the house, hung up all my soaking wet running clothes and sat down in front of the window unit. Clark left for Pennsylvania, and then I made Pepper go upstairs with me so I could do my strength training before it got too hot up there. It was actually nicer in the attic than it was downstairs at that time. I did ab exercises, push-ups, invisible chair-sitting and lifted weights.

And now Pepper and I are set up in the bedroom for the day, until I have to leave to cover something for work later. Hopefully at least one of Clark’s parents will be home and agree to watch Pep while I’m away. This no AC thing is such a pain in the ass.

Training for 7/25/16

Friday evening, TK and I went to Lewes to run the inaugural Twilight 5K, our final summer series race.

We were expecting heavy traffic going to the beach on a Friday, so we left really early. Turned out traffic wasn’t that bad (yet), so we got to Herring Point in Cape Henlopen State Park almost 90 minutes ahead of the 7 p.m. start time.

The race director was still setting up, and we were the first ones to pick up our race bibs and event T-shirts. We killed some time by taking a walk along the ocean. It was pretty hot, and the chilly ocean water felt great. I didn’t even mind when we misjudged a couple of incoming waves and got drenched nearly up to our waists.

Around quarter after 6, we went back to the car, wiped the sand off our feet and put on our running shoes and race bibs.

I did an easy mile to warm up. It was so stinking hot, and humid, of course. I was already sweating my face off when I finished my warm up.

About 10 minutes of 7, the race director called us over to the start line. He said he thought this would be in the top 10 of the hottest races he’d ever held, and he’s been doing this in Delaware for years.

The start (and finish) line were at the top of a small hill in the parking lot closest to the beach access point. We had to wait for a few cars to get out of the way before we could start the race.

While we were waiting, I heard one of the other runners saying she might have bad gas because she’d eaten peppers and onions with lunch, and had a beer. One of the hazards of an evening race! She said that could be her strategy, to gas out her competition. She wound up winning her age group, so I guess it worked haha.

Anyway, the parking lot finally cleared out long enough for us to start the race, and we were off!

The smiling woman in the bright yellow sports bra on the right is the one who was warning everyone about her potential gas. Look at the face of the woman to the left of her haha.

Anyway, I’m a little farther back there in the blue sports bra and black shorts. Here I am a few steps farther down the hill:

The race course left the parking lot and turned right, running less than a quarter-mile up the road, before making a quick turn onto a trail.

On the trail, we ran back the way we’d come, passing behind another parking lot.

The race photographer was taking pictures here, less than a half-mile into the race, when we weren’t hurting too bad yet:

We followed that trail through the woods, to a newish section that just opened less than two years ago, connecting Cape Henlopen State Park to Gordon’s Pond State Park in Rehoboth.

The first part of this section of the trail was on a bridge that was fun to run on. I hit the first mile marker in 7:05. Decent, but I didn’t think I could hold on to that pace. It felt like it just kept getting hotter as we ran.

The bridge ended and we were back on a crushed gravel trail, winding through the marshes. It was a very pretty course, but the way the breeze was blowing, we caught some strong whiffs of marshes at low tide a couple of times.

Around mile 1.8, we made a U-turn. There was a water stop there. I grabbed a cup, drank some of it and poured the rest over my head.

Mile 2 came in at 7:27. Yup, slowing down! Just one more mile to go though.

Just after passing the mile two marker.

That last mile did not feel good at all! I managed to pass a couple more runners though, without getting passed by anyone else.

We exited the woods behind the parking lot across from the beach access lot. The mile 3 marker was right there, which I ran in 7:19. The course took us around that lot, across the road and back to the beach access lot.

That meant the sweet downhill we’d run at the very beginning was now a torturous uphill at the very end.

“What a great place for an uphill.”

I made it back up the hill and crossed the line in 22:53 — 30 seconds faster than the 5K I’d run six days earlier. I was so glad to be done!

I took a bottle of water and then did another slow mile to cool down.

I got back to the finish line in time to see TK come across the line. She hadn’t had a very good race; she said she’d felt like she was on the verge of puking several times in that last mile, and had to take walk breaks. But she made it, and now we’re both done with summer series 5Ks.

By that time, the sun had gotten low enough that it was a pretty nice evening to sit outside. Plus, after you run hard in the heat and then cool down, it always feels more comfortable than it had before you ran.

TK and me after the race.

Eventually they posted the results. I was 15th overall, fourth female runner and first in my age group. I got six first place age group finishes in the series, giving me a lowest-possible final score of six, only the second time in seven years I’ve pulled that off.

When they handed out the awards, there was a bonus. This year, they hadn’t held the Women’s Distance Festival 5K, the one I’d always run for the New Balance gift certificates that went to the top 10 female finishers. It turned out, the local New Balance store had picked this race to be the stand-in, so the top 10 female runners all got gift certificates and a New Balance water bottle. This was not mentioned anywhere on the race website, so we were all pleasantly surprised when we got those. For finishing fourth, I got $15.

Two of three winners in the F 30-34 age group.

So, all in all, a successful evening! It was nearly 9 p.m. by the time everything had wrapped up. TK and I went straight home.

Saturday, Clark left bright and early for his bike ride in Cambridge. Around 9:30 a.m., I finally went out to do the 5-miler on my schedule.

It was blazing hot already. It was a slow slog around the 5.5-mile loop, with plenty of breaks to take a pull off my water bottle. I was glad to get back home into the air conditioning (which Clark had been able to fix Friday morning.)

Clark got home from the bike ride. We spent a lot of the afternoon lying around. I took a nap. Running in the heat makes me so sleepy.

Later, we decided to go to Rehoboth to try Revelation Brewing, a new microbrewery started by another former Dogfish Head employee.

Traffic was a nightmare, as expected, but we eventually made it. The brewery was in a pole building in a little residential area on the bike trail, just off the main drag in town. It’s just a tasting room, so dogs are allowed.

The place was packed when we first got there, but it thinned out and we got settled in at the bar. I started with a flight, and chose the orange wheat, blonde ale, peach saison and weisse with strawberries. The peach saison was by far my favorite. Clark got the oyster stout, which was also pretty good.

Pepper hiding under Clark’s feet and attracting flies haha.

Our next stop was Dogfish Head. The patio is gone, as construction of the new building is under way, but there’s still some limited space outside where they’ll let you sit and drink beers from the bar.

I had two brewpub exclusives, Mint Berry Crunch and Belgian Fusion, and then Clark and I split a Chocolate Lobster.

We were sitting near a kiosk outside, where they sell Dogfish Head merchandise. One employee said they’d sold a lot more stuff since Pepper had gotten there, because he was attracting everyone’s attention (as usual.) I offered to bring Pepper around every day to serve as a Dogfish Head mascot.

Our last stop of the night was a restaurant in Rehoboth for dinner. It spells its name like this: a(MUSE.) I’m just gonna call it Amuse though, because I feel like a hipster typing out that stupid spelling.

Except for the fact they have outdoor seating and allow dogs, I don’t have much good to say about our experience there.

It was late enough by the time we got there that they were only serving their late-night menu (which they called a “pop-up dinner” menu, whatever the hell that means), but there was plenty on it.

The thing was though, service was sloooooooooooow. It took forever just to get our drink order, and I bet we were there an hour before we got any food. And when the food did get there, it was underwhelming. I had ramen with pork belly and crab, and we split an appetizer of hot chicken. Nothing impressed me. I don’t think we’ll be going back.

I guess you could say we were not… amused. Ha.

Anyway. We went home after dinner.

Sunday morning, I was woken up by Clark, who said the air conditioning had crapped out on us overnight, for the second time since this stupid heat advisory went into effect. Great!

Before he started working on that though, he let me drive this:

As of Friday afternoon, this is Clark’s company car, a brand new 2016 Ford Focus ST. It has pretty much every option you can get on a new car right now, but the best part is the turbocharged four-banger putting out 252 hp, with a six-speed manual.

I drove a route that ended with a perfectly straight two-mile stretch. This thing FLIES. And it’s so smooth! I like it. It really made my old Civic feel like a turd though haha.

After that bit of excitement, Clark got to work on the AC. Nothing he tried was fixing it. We had already paid for tickets to brunch though, and we couldn’t take Pepper. We didn’t want to leave him locked up in one small room in a hot house, and Clark’s parents were at the beach.

So we went to our last resort. We called my parents to see if they would watch Pepper.

Fortunately, my mom was the one who answered the phone when I called, because my dad probably would’ve immediately come up with a long list of reasons why Pepper couldn’t stay there for two hours. Mom said they’d watch him for us.

We had to wait a little while for my parents to get home from church before we could leave their house, so we were about 15 minutes late getting to Turnbridge Point in Denton for brunch. Turns out, the chef, Steve, likes to announce the brunch selections to the entire group, so everyone has to be there before they let people start eating. Sorry, everyone else! We would’ve been on time if our stupid air conditioning was working.

Steve described everything on the buffet and then turned us loose. This was my first (of two) plates:

Let’s see if I can remember what everything is. At the very bottom center is fruit salad that was dressed with something incredible that I have forgotten. Clockwise from the fruit salad is a mushroom and rice salad, tomato and cucumber salad, parts of a nicoise salad (green beans, shrimp and hard boiled egg), mini Quiche Lorraine, huevos rancheros on a homemade tortilla chip, mini fig and cheese sandwich and a giant cinnamon roll with cream cheese frosting. In the cup off to the side of the plate is a cucumber-dill soup.

Not pictured but also on the buffet are biscuits with either sausage gravy or peach jam, mini BLTs with candied pork belly in place of the bacon and mini “grown-up” grilled cheeses.

Holy crap. Brunch was amazing. Everything was so good, but my favorites were the fruit salad, the huevos rancheros (which had just the right amount of habanero olive oil for heat) and the cinnamon roll. The CINNAMON ROLL. I could eat a whole pan of those right now.

When we’d had our fill, Clark and I went for a little walk on the grounds behind the house. There was a garden, which had supplied all the tomatoes used in that brunch, and several sitting areas for guests at the bed and breakfast. It went all the way down to the Choptank River.

View of the Choptank River.

Looking up from the river to the back yard.

When we got back, they were getting ready to serve dessert. It wasn’t over!

Steve had four desserts for us: Cherry shortcake, an upside-down peach cobbler, meringue cookies and Cannolis, a cookie he invented that’s supposed to be a cross between a cannoli and an Oreo.

I was hurting by the end, but I managed to power through every one of those desserts.

Look at this perfect little meringue cookie with a lemon curd center! LOOK AT IT.

And then, Steve went around and offered everyone a box to take home leftovers. I have never been offered a brunch doggy bag. The thought of more food at the moment was making me feel a little sick, but I filled ours with the fruit salad and two huevos rancheros. Maybe I’d be hungry again some day.

We went back to my parents’ house. Everyone had survived, though Pepper had howled the whole time we were gone and then went insane when we actually came back.

We stayed there a little while, soaking up the AC, and then we went home. Clark worked on the AC some more while I set myself up in the living room floor with a box fan and a little spray bottle of water, where I watched the race.

It took a while, but eventually Pepper figured out what the fan was for, and he totally hogged it:

It’s much cooler right here!

Meanwhile, nothing Clark tried fixed the AC. He ran out of ideas, so we gave up and put all the screens in the windows so we could at least get a breeze in the house, even if it did feel like it was coming from a furnace.

I moved the fan into our room when I went to bed. I felt like a kid again, sleeping in a hot room with a fan. I never had AC in my room growing up; we only had it downstairs, and my parents had their own little window unit just for their room. I guess my dad thought sweating our asses off all summer just trying to sleep was character-building or something.

This morning, I got up early and ran the easy 3-miler on the schedule. Today is supposed to be even hotter than it was this weekend, as if that’s possible. It already felt like nearly 90 at 7 a.m. The worst part of sweating through that run was knowing there wasn’t going to be any cool blast of relief when I opened the back door at home.

I thought about taking Pepper to my office just to get away from this oven today, but now someone is supposedly coming here to try to fix the AC for us, so I guess I’m hanging out here in front of the fan all day again.

You might have noticed there was no running yesterday, when I was supposed to be doing a long run. I just skipped that one completely and I don’t even care. Three miles today was bad enough. It can’t stay this hot forever!

Training for 7/22/16

Yesterday, after I got done finding things to do instead, I went out to the Sharptown bridge and ran the three hill repeats on the schedule. I did an easy mile to warm up, ran up and over the bridge twice, and then ran up it one last time and turned around and came back down. I did another mile to cool down.

In total, I ran 3.5 miles in 28:42, an 8:14/mile average.

This evening, I’m running the Twilight 5K in Cape Henlopen State Park, the fifth and final 5K I need to run in the summer series to qualify for the end-of-year awards.

It’s going to be nasty. The whole weekend is; there’s a heat advisory in effect as of early this morning, until Monday evening. It’s supposed to still feel like the low 90s at 7 p.m. when the race starts.

So it’ll be slow, but it’ll get done. And then I don’t have to race any more 5Ks until the fall if I don’t want to.

Speaking of heat, the air conditioning in our house picked a fine time to conk out. Last night, when Clark got home from work, he realized there wasn’t any cold air coming out when the AC was running.

It got up to 86 in the house last night. I mean, we keep it at 80 during the summer anyway, but still. It was a little toasty.

Right now, he’s out picking up a replacement for the part he thinks is the problem. If it’s not the problem, he’s pretty sure we’re just going to have to replace the whole unit. Fingers crossed this smaller repair does the trick.

As far as the rest of the weekend goes, I’m supposed to do a 5-miler and a 10-miler. Clark is signed up for a 32-mile bike ride in Cambridge tomorrow morning. We’ve got brunch Sunday morning, and then the Brickyard 400 is that afternoon. Jeff Gordon came out of retirement to sub for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is suffering from concussion-like symptoms and will be out for an indefinite period of time. Gordon’s lined up to drive his car this weekend at Indy and next weekend at Pocono.

Training for 7/21/16

Yesterday, I went upstairs and did ab exercises, push-ups, invisible chair-sitting and lifted weights, and after Clark got home, I went out and ran a quick 3-miler before the sun went down.

Today, I have my first speed workout of the training cycle on the schedule, three hill repeats. I was going to get out to the bridge early and get them done before it got too hot, but yeah… that didn’t happen.

I was getting dressed when it dawned on me I haven’t seen my black sports bra in a while. I have 400 sports bras, but for some reason it was really important to me to find *that one* right this second.

I thought it might have fallen into the floor of my closet, which is a knee-deep trash heap of running shoes, work shoes, sweatshirts, clothes I keep meaning to take to Goodwill and anything that has slid off one of the towering piles of running clothes loaded up on the shelves (like my sports bras.)

So I cleaned it out. I did not find the black sports bra, which is probably just wedged up in one of the piles of race shirts on that shelf, but I did unearth all of my running shoes I’ve accumulated since the last time I cleaned out my closet, probably two years ago:

I’m pretty sure New Balances reproduce like rabbits when you leave them alone in the dark.

And I accomplished one more thing! Clark and I still haven’t gone to brunch at Turnbridge Point, the bed and breakfast in Denton owned by Steve, the guy who competed on the Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship last year. At first, he was only doing it once a month, and it was selling out months in advance. He added more dates, and there were still a few tables for two available for this Sunday’s brunch. So we’re in! Finally! I’m really looking forward to it.

Training for 7/20/16

Yesterday, after Clark got home from work, I ran an easy lap around the 5.5-mile loop. Another hot, humid run. Not much else to say about it.

Another very strong thunderstorm came through in the middle of the night, well early morning really. Today’s not too hot, compared to the last couple of weeks, only about 82 degrees. At some point, I will go do the easy 3-miler and strength training on the schedule.

Since it’s July, I just ordered a pair of Nike running tights with a brushed thermal lining. It’s hard to imagine it will ever be cold enough here again to need them, but it will be someday, and I’ll be glad I thought to pick them up on clearance for less than half price back in the middle of the summer.

Training for 7/19/16

Yesterday, a pretty powerful thunderstorm rolled through right about when I was going to go for my run. Fortunately, it was moving quickly, and the lightning cleared out in plenty of time for me to get in the 3-miler on the schedule before sunset.

The storm cooled off the temperature considerably, but it didn’t really feel any better, because the humidity was almost 100 percent. Another short easy run that left me completely drenched in sweat.

Last night, we burned our picnic table. Clark bought this thing for like $70 from Lowe’s the summer we moved into this house, so I think eight years was a good run for it. It was so thoroughly dry rotted we were able to break it up with our hands.

After starting the fire with the first few slats from the top.

Everything in the fire except the frames from both ends and a couple of slats from one of the seats.

All gone.

Pepper doing a Slinky impression.

It took a while to burn the whole thing. I think it was between 1 and 2 a.m. when I finally went to bed. So no, I haven’t done today’s run yet. I’ve got an easy 5-miler on the schedule.

This coming Sunday is the trail run in Rosaryville State Park I’ve done a few times. I was thinking about doing the 25K again this year, but then I checked the weather forecast. It’s supposed to be as hot and nasty as last year. Predicted high is 99, which will, of course, feel hotter because of the humidity. I think I’ll just stay home and do the 10-mile long run on the training plan instead.

Jen said she isn’t as heat-trained as she was this time last year, so she’s not running it either. Maybe we’ll meet there again next year.

Training for 7/18/16

Well, the heat really kicked my ass this weekend, but I survived the 5K Saturday morning and a long-ish run Sunday morning.

Saturday was the Race for the Ribbon 5K in Rehoboth, on the exact same course on which I ran the Father’s Day 5K a month ago in 22:28. I was hoping a miraculous cold front would come through the night before the race, but nope. It was already hot and steamy when TK got to my house at 6 a.m. for the drive to Rehoboth.

We got our event T-shirts and race bibs. After one last pee break, I only had enough time for a half-mile warmup.

It had been overcast when we first arrived in Rehoboth, but of course, the sun broke free just before the race started. Perfect!

I joined my fellow 300+ runners and walkers at the start line. This is one of the more popular races in the summer series. It’s held in memory of two local people who died because of cancer. The breakfast buffet at the Greene Turtle on the boardwalk, free to participants, is a big draw, and the silent auction after the race raises a lot of money for cancer research.

We got the start commands and we were off.

Field of runners squeezing by a delivery truck a 10th of a mile into the race.

Since my wish for a last-minute cold front was not granted, my next hope was that I had developed an immunity to the effects of hot weather on running over the last couple of weeks, and I would still manage to pull off a faster 5K than the 21:56 I ran over the Fourth of July weekend.

Haha. Nope. I could not breathe in that humidity. My first mile was 7:15, 25 seconds slower than my first mile in the last 5K I ran, and I could tell it was just going to get worse from there.

I was right about that. The second mile wound through a neighborhood. The little bit of a breeze we’d had in the first mile was gone. It felt even more stiflingly hot. I took two cups of water from the water stop at mile 1.9, walked a few steps to drink part of one, and then poured the rest of it and the entire second cup over my head.

Mile 2 clocked in at a blistering 7:49. Yowza! About two 10ths of a mile later, we made a U-turn and headed back toward the finish line. I can’t tell you how bad I wanted to stop running. I felt like I had zero oxygen in my body. Some guy ran up next to me and asked what time was on my watch. I told him we were at 16:45. He asked what time I was shooting for and I answered I was so far off any semblance of a goal time, I was just hoping to finish without dying.

I passed a few runners who’d given in to the urge to walk in that last mile, which just made it look that much more tempting, but I managed to force myself to run all the way back. It was horrible.

Almost to the finish.

I ran the third mile in 7:32 and crossed the line in 23:24 — a minute slower than the 5K on the same course a month ago, and 90 seconds slower than my most recent 5K. My average pace was slower than it was in the 5-miler I ran Memorial Day weekend. Stupid humidity!

For good measure, about halfway through that last mile, my digestive system had made itself known. In a freaking 5K. Really! So my first order of business once I stopped running was to get my butt to a bathroom, pronto.

I got that taken care of, and then I took off for a cool down. I did a mile and a half, super easy, taking plenty of breaks to walk and drink from the bottle of water I’d gotten at the finish line.

I got back to the finish line area just after TK finished. She’d run a slower 5K than the last one too — and she’d donated blood the day before the last one.

We exchanged our running shoes for flip flops and then went to the post-race party at the Greene Turtle. The floor in that place was soaked, from all the sweat dripping off everyone’s completely saturated clothing. My shorts were clinging to my legs like a wet plastic bag, and my feet were slipping in my flip flops. So gross!

I got a bunch of pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage and watermelon. That really hit the spot.

I didn’t see the results before they announced the awards, so I didn’t know if someone had beaten me in my age group. It turned out I won it again though. Five down for the summer series, one to go! When I looked at the results later, I saw that I’d beaten second place by more than five minutes. Guess I could’ve taken a walk break in that third mile after all!

Top three in my age group.

I was also 11th of 154 female finishers, and 42nd of 293 finishers in the open division. (This race also has a Clydesdale and Filly division, for male and female runners who’d rather compete in a weight class than in the age groups, which is why there were more than 300 participants but only 293 in the overall finishing order.)

So that was done. TK and I got iced coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts and then drove to Fenwick, where we spent a few hours on the beach. The damn clouds returned when we were laying out, of course! Where were they when we were running?

That evening, Clark and I went to my nephews’ 18th birthday party. Poor Caleb just got his first job, at the new Harris-Teeter that opened last month in Easton, and had to work through his own birthday party.

Sunday, I once again put off running until late morning, even though it’s way too hot to be doing that right now. Around 10 a.m., I finally pulled myself off the couch and went out for a lap around the 9.1-mile loop.

It was another miserable run. First of all, my digestive tract was having one of those days. I had to stop around two miles in, and then again around the end of the fifth mile. I felt like I had to go again, off and on, the entire rest of the way home. And, of course, it was pretty hot by that point, which wasn’t helping.

I eventually made it home. In the afternoon, Clark and I went back to Fenwick. We left Pepper with Clark’s parents for a little bit so we could go to the beach. Clark wanted to go for a training swim in the ocean, now that the jellyfish have taken over the Choptank River.

Clark’s parents had been on the beach earlier that day, and left their chairs and umbrella, so I sat there while Clark was out swimming. Unfortunately, right next to their stuff was a group of the most annoying tourists I have ever come into contact with on the beach. Seriously.

It was a bunch of drunk idiots from New York City, playing fucking BOCCE right on the beach. And not back by the dunes, but right up by the water, where they were throwing large, heavy balls (like croquet balls, only bigger) around other people just trying to enjoy their day in peace and quiet.

That was another thing — since bocce is a competition, every single time one of them threw the ball, no matter what happened, they would all yell OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! when it landed. Every. Fucking. Time. And when they weren’t hollering like they’d just scored a goal in a World Cup soccer game, they were yelling back and forth, the way drunk people do, because everyone thinks they’re clever when they’ve been drinking.

Yes, that is a man bun on the jackass throwing the bocce ball in my direction here. That just made me hate him the most.

I felt like I was trapped in a Bud Light Lime commercial. Young people being so carefree and cool! You know what they don’t show in those commercials? The other people, off-camera, who are pissed they have to put up with their nonsense. Tourists. UGH.

At one point, I moved my beach chair, and one of the guys said “You don’t have to move, we’re not going to hit you!” I told him I had no interest in sitting there and finding out if that was true, without a hint of friendliness in my voice.

Who plays bocce on the beach anyway?! Get a football or a Frisbee like normal people! Oh wait — that’s the problem with footballs and Frisbees. They’re so mainstream. Hipster douches from New York have to play something obscure so everyone knows how cool they are.

Well I for one was very impressed by how cool they were, if you can’t tell, since I’m still seething about it a day later.

Anyway, Clark returned from his swim, and we packed up the chairs and umbrella and got the hell out of there.

We drank some beers at the beach house with his parents, got dinner at Matteo’s and went home.

Today is the first day of 18 weeks of Philly Marathon training! I’m back on a set plan. Today, I’m supposed to do an easy 3-miler and strength training.