H^3, FDFs, LV HRs and PS

Today might have been the type of day I'd rearrange my training plan for, maybe do an easy run instead of the repeats, adding a few extra to Friday's. It was predicted to be in the 90s by 10am with feels like temps in the 100s. Sigh. But Piper is having surgery to remove another sebaceous cyst tomorrow. Friday, the day I also do hill repeats will likely see me acting as a human cone for Piper. She just can't handle them, even the soft, pillow ones. I figured I get out early (for me) and tough it out as long as I could.

I think when I pulled into Lost Valley the temperature was in the high 80s. It was the definition of hazy, hot, and humid. My Coros shows I started at 9:01am. Seriously, for me, that's pretty good. As usual, I planned to do the dirt road as a warmup, but when I pulled the poles out of the quiver at the first incline, I couldn't get one of them to extend all the way. The lock wouldn't lock. I worked at it a bit, while feeding the dear flies. I didn't see any of the usual guys at or around the lodge so I headed back to the garage area and snagged someone before they headed in. He was able to make it look easy to extend the pole all the way. Thank you!!! Back to the warm up.

Warm up was a joke. I was already dripping sweat everywhere. Still, gotta focus. I just did one of the dirt road warmup laps before I started up my slope. The deer flies focused on my forearms and hands since they were busy with the poles; it was hard to do anything about them. Damned deer flies were soon promoted to fucking deer flies. Grrr!!! I managed to kill a few, but they all were full of my blood. Fuckers!!! And now one hand is swollen and everything is itchy.

I have a rule that I don't drive to run for anything less than 5 miles so I made myself hang in there for the minimum. It was well into the 90s when I stopped. I grabbed my bag and a cold bubble water from my cooler then headed straight to the air conditioned lodge. I sat for a long time, trying to stop sweating before changing. I went out to wring out my shirt a couple of times. It really didn't help; my sweat puddled below the bench. Finally, it slowed enough, I changed, grabbed a little Coke from my cooler to drive home with. I am beyond grateful we bought my new car already. I don't think I could have gotten into the subaru without AC. Golden Boy's air conditioning is heavenly.