Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Beautiful Day For A 20 Mile Run!


I let my internal clock wake me up. I slowly made my way downstairs to make my tea. I caught up on emails and then made an English muffin with peanut butter. I decided on what to wear for my run. I got all my supplies together and with much excitement I headed out for my 20 miler.

The weather was perfect. It was 15 degrees (59 F) and not a cloud in the sky. I was in such a great mood and really motivated. I struggled a bit with some side stitches and struggled through the fifteenth mile. Legs were hardly even wobbly as I did my cool down walk. Fantastic run!

I am going to take you back to the 4th mile. I am running and I notice a helicopter. It seems as if the helicopter is flying in circles. My first thought is that it was a "student driver" learning to fly. My second thought was that they were searching for a dead body. As I am getting closer the third and final thought (which was correct) was that it was spraying the fields with fertilizer or some other stuff. I am watching loads of dust-like particulate fall from the helicopter. I begin to wonder what sort of carcinogens I would soon be inhaling. I hope that there are some sort of restrictions on what people can spray their fields with!

At the 6th mile mark a car carrying high school students (I am just assuming) comes up behind me (in the opposite lane) and a young man in the back, sticks his torso out of the car window and proceeds to bark at me. He managed to scare the s--t out of me. As I cringed and cowered slightly... I hoped that they didn't notice my reaction. WTF? Barking? What is that supposed to mean? My racing heart calmed down very soon after!

At the 10 mile mark I ran by a field where a farmer is driving some huge tractor thing. Yes, he's spraying something on his fields. I managed to take in a deep breath of dust and particulate as the wind carried the fertilizer (or whatever) right to me!! Blech! I coughed for a while as I sprinted to get out of the dust cloud.

All in all, it was a great run. I managed to stay positive and focused. Wouldn't it be great if all runs were like that?!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No pollution or particulate up here - just bears!!!
If that don't get you to run fast nothing will.
Janet

Stacey said...

I think I'll take the pollution! lol

juli said...

Glad to hear the 20 mi, went well! Talk soon.