My goodness! This morning I was scheduled for an easy 6 miler. 6 easy pace recovery miles. I can do that! Easy Peasy!!!
Or so I thought.
Took my first mile kind of slowish…you know, working out the various kinks from yesterdays long run, getting ready to open up and RUN.
I made it to the end of my street and turned left. I had run 1.20 miles *gospel according to Garmin* when a car came up next to me and slowed down. It was my neighbor. She’s the nicest lady you’ll ever meet and I really enjoy talking to her~just not when I’m running.
She rolled down her window. “You’re running at X miles per hour! Is that good?” she asked.
“Um, not really.” I replied.
She then proceeded to tell me about the shrimp she made for dinner the evening before.
See, we both have an acquaintance that does shrimping down on the Gulf Coast. Once a month he shrimps on the weekend and Tuesday he’s up in our area selling his shrimp out of the back of his pickup truck. It’s kind of a sketchy arrangement but the shrimp is reasonably priced and tasty, too!
Anyway, she had fixed some of the shrimp for dinner the evening before and we were discussing shrimp recipes for the next mile…her still driving along side of me in her car with the window down. Me, trudging along side of her, thinking this HAD to be the strangest situation ever!
About this time, we both notice a car that was driving close behind us. You could see the guy fuming and I could read his thoughts, which were along the line of, “Really!?! You have to be talking about cooking NOW!?!”
Hahaha!!! My friend decided that maybe we should carry on our conversation later and she zoomed off.
After she left, the sun came out and it got serious hot. I was regretting my decision to leave my handheld at home. A drink of water sounded fabulous right about then!!! *I ended up losing just a little shy of 4lbs of water during this 6 mile run* I only had another 4 miles to go so set about my task.
“It’s only 4 miles! No worries. A walk in the park!!!”
I was using every mental trick I knew because it was H.O.T.
I ran down and did the loop on hwy 45S and counted off mile 5. Only one left!
By now, I was on Robinson Road and by the horses. I always feel bad for these horses. Hardly anybody comes to visit them. They are lonely and the sweetest horses you’ll ever meet.
Three of the horses came up to the fence. They wanted me to rub their noses. Well, they WERE in the shade. Shade was my friend. Hahaha!!!
I checked for snakes. Since I didn’t see any, I hopped the ditch and started petting the horses and talking to them. I pulled out my phone and took some pics. They were such nice horses and happy for the attention.
Aren’t horses the best!?! Love them!
That’s when I felt something chewing on my ankle!
I looked down. See, I had checked for snakes but I hadn’t checked for fire ants.
*Fire Ants are Evil*
My left foot was covered with those nasty little things and they were biting me like crazy!!!
I immediately hopped the ditch back to the asphalt and began doing “The Dance.”
“The Dance” is where you hop and brush frantically on yourself trying to get the fire ants off your body. If you’ve ever had an encounter with these things, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
My problem was I was soooo sweaty, they were sticking to me and I couldn’t brush them off. The had managed to get inside my new On running shoes, too!
So, try, if you will, to picture me in the middle of the road, one shoe off, one shoe on, hopping around on one leg, frantically trying to brush those mean little ants off my leg AND get them out of my shoe. I’m sure I was a sight!!!
Finally, I just gave up on the whole thing. I put the shoe back on my foot and hoofed it for home. Good grief!!!
Now, I have nice, itchy welts all over my left ankle. #souvenir
I also have a souvenir from yesterday’s 16 miler!
Seeing as it was a dark o’clock run, I had to wear my headlamp. I have a love/hate thing with headlamps and I thought last week on my 22 miler that I had resolved my problem.
See, I can never adjust them to stay put on my head. I can’t get them small enough so they’re always sliding all over the place.
Last week, I wore my visor backwards, you know, with the bill in the back? That helped the headlamp stay put. It didn’t slide around and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself!
Yesterday, I did the same thing. I put the visor on backwards, bill in the back. Put on the headlamp and headed on out the door.
Something about that arrangement was not happy yesterday! For 16 miles, the bill of my visor rubbed on my neck and chafed me something awful! If I would have thought, I could have put my ChafeX on and saved myself a lot of grief. *sigh*
MFH (My Favorite Husband) took a pic this morning and you can see that I have a few “Owies” from yesterday’s run where the visor bill “got” me.
I know~doesn’t look like much but trust me! It hurts like a __________!!!
That’s all the running stories that I’m going to share today. Happy Thursday, all!!! Happy Running!!!
#IRun4Aiden
#teamZensah
#AbbottWMM
#OiselleVolee
#ChafeX
#mscoffeerunners