Hot At 5am Is Too Hot

Dear Marathon Training in 85 degree weather,

Way to make a girl suicidal.


Sincerely,
The girl who was sweating so much she stopped mid-run at one point to yell, "My eyes! My eyes are burning!" and then had a (turned out to be) good-natured fellow jogger splash her in the face with Gatorade to try and help. It didn't. It just made me sticky.


So, when I woke up at 5am it was blazing, and I thought it won't be that bad outside, and then I got outside and proceeded to sweat my balls off for the next three hours.

Normally I love my long run days because I get a weird feeling of joy when I know I've worked so hard it's gonna be a struggle lifting that leg over the bathtub to get out of the shower, and because there's an odd sense of euphoria and ridiculous emotional stuff that comes after about mile 15 when I either want to break down sobbing because that tree is just so pretty, or start giggling uncontrollably because I've suddenly decided something my mom said to me the night before about her rash is hysterical. But today was not all fun and games. Today was so hot I was soaked before I finished my first mile. And I was sure Chicagoans must have sensed I was having a hard time today, and wasn't gonna make it without their support because for the first hour or so everyone that passed me smiled. Smiled big. And I smiled back. And said hi more than I usually do, because damnit, if they were rooting for me the I was too!

And then I stopped to refill my water.

I glanced down while I was trying to fight off the urge to strip naked and try to bathe myself in the water fountain and noticed my shirt was a lot wetter than I'd thought. And then I noticed it. Two huge wet circles right where my boobs live. It looked like I'd forgotten to put in my breast feeding pads and was leaking. Turns out if you carry your water bottle kinda up high and don't pay attention to how hard you squeeze it sometimes, it can leak. It can leak in some very noticeable spots.

Thanks for the support Chicago.

Anyway, the Gatorade throwing guy immediately said, "Oh shoot! I thought that was the one filled with water." It didn't matter, I was so hot he could have doused me with cool kerosene and I would have been fine with it.

By the time I finished my run I headed straight for the lake, stripping off my shoes and shirt as I walked, fairly certain this song started playing all around me in a building thing of song wonder(thanks weird running hormones) and dove into the freezing, icy, colder-than-actual-ice lake, and it was amazing. It was such a shock that it knocked the breath out of me and when I came up for air gasping, with a weird ice cream headache, an old woman who was inching her way in said, "Did you swim here dear?" I wanted to ask her where she thought I swam from, or just tell her yes, yes I did - but instead I just said no, I was hot, to which she said, "F yeah it is." She censored herself for me, which of course made me start to giggle and then I knew it was time to get home and eat something (everything) in my house.

It was really sucky most of the time, and I certainly don't ever want to run in that sort of heat again, but the lake, Gatorade guy, and the lady totally made it all seem worth it. Totally f-ing crazy. But worth it.