Have I Mentioned How Humid It Is?....

Good Lord the humidity is not playing! I guess I never really paid much attention to it, other than the days it totally ruined my hair-do, back in my relaxer days (another reason to be SO very happy that I am a beautiful natural chick)..anyway, running in the humidity can be best described as trying to run in water, or cotton, or something like that.

You start out - early in the morning before the sun comes up or even in the late evening when the sun is going down- and you think 'hey this isn't so bad' there may be a slight breeze, you can smell the different blooming flowers (except that one house with the plants that smell like some kind of stinkweed) and you think it will be an easy run, nice run up the street and around the block..then BAM!! First the sweating, and not a nice light 'glisten' oh no once the sweating starts it is THERE...it is so humid and the air already has so much moisture in it the sweat on your body doesn't evaporate so it just builds, and drips off you, in HUGE puddles.

So there is the sweat, the feeling of running through thick soup (lol) which adds up to the breathing difficulties. Thankfully I think I am doing ok with this one, I am really paying attention to my breathing, making sure I am taking more deep belly breaths instead of the shallow chest breath that I found out doesn't help get the oxygen needed all through my body.

I look back at my training and race results and I am amazed that my last run before the height of humidity set in, I was able to finish in 35 minutes but now 3 miles takes me closer to 38 sometimes 40 minutes and I feel like I am struggling just to finish. But on the other hand, I ran 7 minutes faster today on my Thursday 5 miles run that I did last week. I stopped a lot less and was able to kick up my pace more and that felt really good.

Tomorrow is my FAVORITE training day - it is my rest day whoohoo! Then an easy 3 mile run on Saturday morning then comes Sunday (cue scary music) and my looooong run day...ok my long run right now is only 6 miles (ha I just typed only 6 miles) - thats just one more mile than my Thursday, I can do that no problem :)