It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

Oy! The humidity!!!

Mother Nature continues to be a bitch by insisting on making it rain practically every single day. Saturday was no different. I woke up at 5:00 am to find that it had apparently been pouring right up until the time I woke up. When I stepped outside the air was as thick as pea soup. Oy. I REALLY didn't want to run in that humidity but I sucked it up & made my way to the park. The mileage for the day was supposed to be 10 miles, but since my last long run was 6 miles, I decided to do only 8. I went out of the park short, down Memorial to Waugh, to Allen Parkway to Sabine & back.

Like last week's long run, I walked the first 30 minutes, but unlike last week I walked it pretty close to my regular pace. After 30 minutes I started to run. I started out pretty good... running about 5 minutes & walking 1 or 2. I wasn't paying too much attention to my watch. I just wanted to see what my body could do & I stopped when my body felt like it needed to stop & started up again when it felt like I could run again. After a while, the humidity was really taking its toll & my running time dropped to 3 & 4 minute incriments, but I still kept it up as long as I could.

When I finally made it almost back to the park, I decided to see if I could run the rest of the way in without stopping, & I'll be damned if I didn't do it! I ran for a full 8-1/2 minutes. I know that may not sound like much of a victory to anyone else, but for me it's huge. I'm really surprised at how much I'm able to run now, especially since I most definitely don't have your typical runner's body. I notice that my legs are definitely more muscular. I still have a loooong way to go to get my body even close to what I want it to be, but things like this encourage me.

There will be no long run for me this Saturday because I am going out of town with some friends for a belated birthday celebration for my friend, Lori. We're going tubing down the Guadelupe, then we're off to Austin for the rest of the weekend. I may bring my running shoes with me just in case though, because 2 of my friends that I'll be with are both training for their 2nd marathon so who knows, they may feel the urge to run a few miles (that is if they aren't too hung over). Truth be told, I really wouldn't mind running at Town Lake. We'll see.

Oh yeah! I got an email today from the Houston Running Bloggers. Turns out I came in 2nd in their HRB Runner of the Month voting. Pretty cool, eh? What sucks is that I didn't get the email about the voting until the last minute & I never had time to vote. Who knows, maybe if I'd voted for myself I would've won. But truth be told, I would've felt weird nominating myself so it probably wouldn't have made a difference. But it still feels nice to know I got nominated. :)