Doh! A deer

No, I didn't take this photo. The photo I did take was of me collapsed on the floor of my kitchen after the run and, trust me, you didn't want to see that

Wednesday night's run was supposed to be a 7 mile tempo run. One mile of warm-up, five miles at 9:45 minutes/mile pace, and one mile cool down.

I got in 5.37 miles total.

I HATE not making my distance goals. But, cutting the run short was the best idea. When I was walking home from the train at 5:45 PM the temperature read-out on the candy factory sign said it was 93^oF. I don't think it had cooled off all that much by the time I left the house for my run an hour later.

I wore and carried as little as possible. A sports bra and shorts with my visor on my head and a bandanna tucked into my waistband. Shoes and socks. My Garmin. And my handheld water bottle filled with half water and half Gatorade (straight Gatorade is too syrupy for me). That was it.

I took the first mile nice and slow and hit it at 10:14. Perfect. Then it was time to ramp it up. I admit I was dreading it because it was just so hot and humid outside. Plus, my Garmin was acting up. Every time I'd glance down to look at my current pace it would say I was running in the 12:00s or even the 13:00s! Kim said I need to name my Garmin, but if it keeps this up the only thing I'm going to name it is Dickhead. Very lady-like.

So, yeah, I had no idea what my pace actually was. Which might be why mile 2 was slightly faster than I intended and why I had to take a break during mile 3.

Although, it wasn't just my speed that made me need to take a break. As I rounded the 2.5 mile point, I came to a stop. Standing at the edge of the path, about 25 feet away from me, was a young deer just snacking away on the leaves of a tree. She was so beautiful that it took me a minute to realize that she was standing knee deep in water. It was then that I noticed the rest of the path and the parking lot I needed to cut through were covered in at least a foot of water. The nearby pond had overflowed after our last heavy rain and still hadn't receded. As beautiful as the scene was (and it was beautiful. I stopped to watch the deer eat and drink for at least 3 minutes while I listened to a toad croak and squirrels scamper. And of course I hadn't brought my camera!), it totally threw me off my route. I had to double back earlier than anticipated.

I didn't take my iPod with me, so to keep myself occupied and my thoughts off how much further I had to go in this heat, I started singing "Doe a Deer" in my head. I sang it over and over and over again. I sang it until I realized I was flubbing up the words. It was at that point I thought to myself that the heat might be getting to me. I decided I would run back to my starting point and reassess.

I really wanted to get the entire 7 miles in. I really did. But when I realized that my Gatorade and water concoction was warmer than the inside of my mouth I decided to call it quits. I hate having to cut a run short, but I figure it's better to do that and live to run another day than risk heat exhaustion or something worse.

Plus, as you can see from the stats, the tempo miles I did do were all faster than 9:45 so I think that should count for something.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 628 ft Location: Forest Park, IL Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 06/24/09 Up/Downhill: [+95/-95] Time: 06:40 PM Difficulty: 2.8 / 5.0   Weather: Partly Cloudy   92 F temp; 42% humidity   96 F heat index; winds W 5 Performance Distance: 5.37 miles Time: 0:52:57 Speed: 6.1 mph Pace: 9' 52 /mi Calories: 547 Map   Elevation (ft)   Pace (min/mile)

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