It’s that time of year again.

I really, really, really love living in Mississippi!  One of my favorite things about it is the nice, toasty weather.  It’s great!  No snow on the 4th of July like when we lived in Colorado.  Woo-Hoo!!!

The only drawback to that nice, toasty weather is running in it.

I’m not talking about 5-10 mile runs.  Those aren’t bad at all.  What I’m talking about are my long runs~like my 22 miler this morning for example.  For those long runs, I kick into #survivalmode and set my alarm.  I run in the dark.

Once the temps hits around 75* (depending on the humidity) this kid wilts.  Seeing as I usually have a fall marathon on my racing schedule, I need to get some quality miles in for those long runs.

Enter: Dark o’clock running.

This morning was my first dark o’clock run for 2016.  It was my last looooonngg run for Grandma’s Marathon in a few weeks.  I have 16 next week and that won’t be too bad but for 22?  Nope, I needed an early start.

MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I had every intention of heading off to bed around 7:00 so we could get a little bit of sleep before my alarm went off at midnight.  Imagine us rushing around when we realized it was 8:30!

Oops!

And of course I couldn’t fall asleep.

*sigh*

I think by the time my alarm went off I got maybe(?) 2.5 hours of sleep.

*groan*

I wanted to be running by 1:30.  My alarm was set for midnight because with these early wake-up calls it takes me a little while to get my bearings and I’m not too terribly efficient with my time.  This morning I was toddling out the front door right at 1:30.  Yay, me!

I did close to 13 miles running along HWY 45S.  This is a 4 lane divided highway and I was keeping a pretty close eye on the traffic.  The first 7-ish miles there wasn’t a car to be seen.  I was doing 2 mile loops on the highway so I wasn’t stuck out in the middle of nowhere when the traffic picked up.  I took a little detour over to Schaeffer’s Chapel and believe it or not, all of this blabbering was to tell you about the 3 miles on this road!

To be honest, by the time I decided to run up to the Chapel, I was a little bummed!  I hadn’t seen one single animal!  That might sound strange to you but I have this…..reputation.  Almost every run, especially during my dark o’clock runs, SOMETHING happens.  It usually involves an animal encounter of some sort.  Here I was at mile 10-ish and I hadn’t seen one animal?  I was disappointed.

Anyway, I headed on up toward the Chapel and I was about 100 yards away from the chapel when my headlamp caught some glowing eyes.  I was carrying an LED flashlight as well so I swung the light around to see what it was.

It was a skunk!  A very(!) disgruntled skunk.  A disgruntled skunk with his tail up very high and starting to swing around to point it at me.  AGH!!!

I picked up my pace (since when did we add speed work to long runs?) and told the skunk I’d hurry and get out of his way.  He fixed his beady little eyes on me but I was hoofing and didn’t stick around to see what he was going to do.  That thing had my number.  I knew it and he knew I knew it!

Why do skunks have to be so doggone cute?

Made it past the skunk and up to the end of the paved part of the road where it turns into gravel.  I stopped to refuel and to be very thankful that I didn’t get sprayed.

It had been my intention to make a couple of passes on this road.  As I started running again, the Opossums started waking up and glaring at me AND I started smelling the Copperheads.  They were on the move now, too. *Copperheads smell like cucumbers.  Very distinctive smell*  I decided I was done on this road and headed back for a few more passes on 45S.

My running on 45S was short lived, too!  The logging trucks were getting started for the day and I really didn’t want to tangle with a logging truck so I finished up that pass on 45S and headed off towards Limerock Road.

Other than smelling the Copperheads for the remainder of my run, the rest of the 22 miles went by smoothly.  That was the only “adventure” I had today!

This was the view as I wrapped my run this morning.  Had a lovely run!  Now, taper time!

#IRun4Aiden

#teamZensah

#AbbottWMM

#oisellevolee

#ChafeX

#MoveItMonday