A warning

I did something stupid yesterday.  I ran when it was way too hot.  I thought my body was ready for the heat but we had a record high that day that was more than I could handle.  I had a pace run scheduled and as I looked at the temp and the dew point, I just thought I would be okay.  I also took stella which was not a good idea either.  She doesn't have much under coat at all and is very lightly coated period (is lightly the right word?).  Anyway, I usually head out around 6 pm when traffic has died down and did so yesterday.  My plan was to warm up for 5 minutes, pace for 45 minutes and then cool down for 5 minutes.  I noticed right away, as I was warming up that I was struggling to even get in the 10s.  That was red flag number 1.  I haven't run that slow unless my legs are super tired from a race, in a long time.  I also seemed to have trouble breathing deeply.  This is common for me for the first half mile of the run but this was much more severe than normal.  The next red flag hit me about 15 minutes in.  I was not hitting pace and couldn't push it any harder.  I had started cold sweating already and feeling faintly nauseous.  At this time, miss stella literally felt like a heavy weight that i was pulling instead of her normal either being right beside me or in front of me.  I immediately stopped, doused her and I with water that my hubby had insisted I take with.  I had my cell phone ready and was evaluating stella for heat stroke but she seemed good as far as color and she wasn't panting too hard like she was in distress.  I decided right then to turn around (we were about a mile out) and head back.  At least I could dump her off and finish my run at the current pace, even if it wasn't my ideal pace for this run.  As I got closer to home, my pace kept slipping and the cold sweats started again.  I decided at that point to walk and to take water again and douse stella again.  Once we got home, I immediately fixed a huge ice water for me and stella.  We both seemed to recover quickly with no ill effects but it wasn't a smart idea from the get go.

It was right then when I decided the time had come to switch back over to morning running.  I will admit, it isn't my favorite thing to get up super duper early to run but I can't endanger stella or I.  It's only a matter of time before the temps stay in the 90s for good. 

This was today's forcast at 7 am so I am sure it was cooler than that when I ran.  I do like the quiet stillness of the town at 5 am.  No one else is stirring other than other town runners.  We get to see the sun rise in all of it's glory and usually no wind or unbearable heat and if you are in digestive distress, no one will notice:)  I have three weeks till my last half of the first part of the year.  This one will be super tough so need to get good training in and morning running is the way to do it.  When i trained for my first half, my BRF and I ran exclusively in the morning and my body got use to it so here is to my body getting use to it and early bed times for a certain red headed toddler.