Ending the day with a shortened run [2011 Running]

**sigh**
Knowing that the weather outlook doesn't look great for the next handful of days; and specially NOT tomorrow :0(.....AND ho-humming around the house, looking for something to do OTHER than make dinner when no one is super hungry anyway because of the heat......

I lace up my shoes and planned, at the spur of the moment, to get my long run out of the way tonight.

When I left, the temperatures were stabilizing in the low 90s, clouds were scattered enough to hopefully give me some moments of "see, it's not so bad"s, and a nice breeze was around to give me a cooling effect from the sweating.

My initial goal was 8.0 miles. My planned route: Run the 3.0 route twice and then finish with the 1.8 route.

Oh MAN! My first half mile....I already altered my initial goal route! I headed down the 1.8 route first (less hills and a better 'warm up'), and then was going to run the 3.0 route twice. My first half mile.....I thought I'd be done at the first turn-around. My legs were SO heavy; my heart felt like it was working hard.....UGH.

THEN, by the mile turn-around, I was doing okay, and getting into a good cadence.

When I came to the fork, I DID head down the 3.0 route which has it's share of hills.

I thought I'd show a graph of my Elevation vs. Speed this time around. You'll observe that I CERTAINLY did my fair share of walking tonight (when the blue is at the low points), HOWEVER most of them are matched up with an incline in elevation. Gah! These hills!!! Why couldn't we live somewhere flat???

;0)

Anyway, but THAT turn-around (@ about 3.2 miles on graph), I walked the big hill and a smidge more before willing my feet to start up again. And it certainly didn't last very long. So....is was during the next half-mile when I decided that I would simply head back home once I came to the fork again, rather than run EITHER loop for the final stretch. "Almost 5 miles" is still better than nothing, right?

I guess I'm just going to have to put off my long run until a) Mother-Nature treats us a little nicer AND b) next week when I've dropped the girls off at school, because the roads are relatively FLAT around the Lake :0)

To close:
Turning into the driveway was nice.........

Opening the front door and being met with a blast of COLD, AC air was better.....

Sitting in front of the fan, typing up this post while cooling down is the BEST :0)

See....I'm all hot -n- schweaty -n- schexy.... :0)

Happy Saturday!