1. Being hot. The heat. Humidity.
2. Blood and stories referring to it. (Okay with my own most of the time.)
3. Mushrooms. (Learning to live with them on pizza, but it's a slow go.)
Running the Chicago 13.1 half-marathon this past weekend did nothing but reaffirm my distaste for the heat. I trained pretty extensively: 200+ miles over the three previous months. But my problem was that those miles were logged in fairly cool temperatures. Saturday was anything but cool. I had a personal goal of finishing in under 2 hours, but I gave that up at mile 8 when my pace wasn't cutting it any longer and my tank was was empty. I ended up walking quite a bit the last 5 miles, something I never did in my training, and I settled for a time around 2:14. For my efforts I may have ended up with a mild case of heat exhaustion; well, that's at least what my intestines and stomach were trying to relay to me.
No worries. I'm good now. I'm still not too pleased with my time. I'm not used to falling short of my physical/athletic goals that I set for myself. I'll rebound, and may even try another half marathon. But, Mother Nature is a bearcat, and I'm in no hurry to get back out there.
Just for those that are curious... The start time temperature of the race was 78. When I finished it was in the middle to upper 80's. They administrators "black flagged" the race when I made it to the 11 mile mark, which meant they would no longer keep time and we were supposed to slow down or walk. Ten ended up going to the hospital and there was one unfortunate casualty. Pretty miserable running conditions on the whole.
Update: I have found pictures of me during the race, although they are all copyrighted and I figure that I shouldn't post them on the web. C'est la vie.
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