These days, I am a glutton for punishment. Yesterday was the second Friday in a row that I chose to run in the late morning heat. Fortunately, a heavy overcast offered the occasional breeze but I still believe the heat and humidity made me delirious.
My run felt strong and my pace felt fast, but I swear, the heat caused me to hallucinate because I really didn’t perform any better than the day before as my virtual running coach Garmin would tell me later.
As I’ve already stated, the heat messed with my mind. After the first mile, I ran along a dead end street in my neighborhood. This little half mile road to nowhere follows along a cypress swap and is great for practicing sprints. As I started to sprint, I noticed something lying in the road, which looked like a person. In the distance, I could barely make out what appeared to be tennis shoes and a blue shirt and this collapsed person had his head propped up on the curb like a pillow.
I came to a dead halt about a tenth of a mile into my sprint. I had to help this person, but I was too scared to run down there alone to offer my assistance. I turned and ran back to the main boulevard to flag down a car. Cars ignored me, but then they probably thought, “It’s just that crazy dancing runner again.”
Then, I spotted a friend riding his bike and I called out to him.
“I need your help. Do you have a cell phone? There’s a person collapsed down there. ”
“Are you serious?” he replied. “Are you sure?”
“No, I’m too scared to run down there by myself.”
To humor a hysterical panicked woman, he rode to the end to investigate the situation. He circled around and reported his findings.
“It’s just a barrel of trash that has spilled.”
Like I said, the heat caused me to hallucinate.
3.10 miles
Time 30:29
Ave Pace 9:50
This morning, Tiffany and I were supposed to run 6 miles with the Striders today, but that never quite happened due to some nasty rain.
It really is raining buckets and barrels here.
That’s quite a hallucination! Heat can definitely have a weird affect on you! Glad it wasn’t really a wounded person!
Yeah, so much for sucking it up and really getting back on track. I suppose if we were truly dedicated we would have run in the rain, but I just bought new shoes and . . . .
I’m such a slacker …. good for you for getting out there!
that’s funny – yay you tho – i bet you felt pretty good afterwards tho!
hahaha. i’m glad it wasn’t really a person, but you do need to get out earlier so you don’t lose any more brain cells 😉
At least when you were delusional, you were smart about it! When I was running in the same spot, I thought I saw an alligator. Having serious “runner brain,” I decided to run CLOSER to the dark figure to see if it was in fact an alligator. Fortunately for me, it was actually a motorcycle!
Comments are closed.