the numbers can be deceiving

The circumstances:
The boy has the stomach bug. Yuck. Let's just leave it at that. And when either of my kids are sick, I inevitably turn into human furniture for them to lounge upon. Thus my planned morning run did not happen. Instead I found myself alternately changing numerous diapers, scrubbing out the bathtub after a rather unfortunate attempt at bathing the boy, and then holding the aforementioned sickie as he finally fell asleep in my arms. That last one, that was wonderful. The other two, bleck.

So after a late lunch I set out to run of hopefully 5-6 miles around 2pm on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. WITHOUT WATER. Miserable Fail. I knew it was nice and sun shiny out as I had been trekking back and forth to the outside trash can to dispose of diapers. (see above) I didn't happen to notice that it was HOT and the sun was BLISTERING.

Any who...My legs and I were giddy for a run after a week of massive thunderstorms had squashed any runs during the week. (No I'm not afraid of rain, I am, however, afraid of lightening.) So I set out at a (for me) blistering pace for a first mile of 8:38. Way way too fast. I tried to reign it in for the second mile. 9:16. Better, but still too fast for what I was wanting for the day. Ideally I would have settled in from the beginning between 9:45-10:00 and cruised for an hour.

Alas, it was not to be. As I hit mile 3 I knew I was overheating. Whoops. As I looped thru a shopping district in our suburb I noticed a Jamba Juice smoothie shop. I decided to swallow my pride and ask for some water seeing as how there was little shade or relief on the return trip home which was now 2ish miles away.

Did I mention I own a FuelBelt? Um, yeah. It was at home.

The nice, but somewhat horrified (at my near spontaneously combusting sweaty appearance) looking teenager gave me a glorious cup of ice water. It was heaven and then I trudged home hopelessly positively splitting the last two miles. Mile 3: 9:57 Mile 4: 10:16

Overall the numbers look good. But that would be very deceiving without the proper explanation.
4.03 miles 38:25 average 9:32/mile

The numbers sometimes lie, but at least I won't soon forget to carry water with me any time I set out for a run in the Oklahoma sun.

Happy (water filled) Running.