Planned run and focus: 4-5 miles easy effort in 80% plus humidity down to Wildwood or Notta Road. I wasn’t even planning on doing my usual 7.0 on Thursdays.

The Run

While I was getting changed the wife offered to pick me up at Tractor Supply, if I wanted to run into Augusta. I jumped at the chance without any questions. We had some stuff to pickup there and it was the perfect opportunity to run someplace other than the same courses I have run since early March.

Bennie was being an idiot as only he can as I was getting ready to run, so I forgot to put tape on my blistered ankle from yesterday and also left my water bottle right by the door. I needed to get going if we were going to meet the curbside pickup time.

I got going and for some reason or other my watch beeped at me at Manny’s house. Damn in my rush to get going I had primed the GPS, but never started it. I got to start it 0.60 miles into the run (at least I know the distance to Manny’s driveway) and since the watch goes into auto shut-down after 5:00 minutes, I figured that by the time I figured out what was going on, I had been running for about 5:20.

Needless to say I was a bit flustered and feeling mmmm maybe I should turn-around and go back and start over. Instead I just kept running down the hill. The next fun thing was my right ankle reminded me that I had a blister going on there and for the next couple of miles it was not all that pleasant. Several times I thought about just turning around and walking back to the house. I just kept running.

Running along the Middle Road in front of the farm was an oven, no shade, high humidity = lots of fun.

As I got up to the hill on the Middle Road, they were cutting trees and traffic was down to one lane. I checked with the flagger to see where they wanted me to run and followed their directions. I made it through there safely, although a Jeep came flying through while I was on the other side of the hill. Yep, they must have had an appointment or something, they were moving right along.

In a way screwing up the watch, made the run a little more bearable, because I have run this course so many times over the years, I know the mile markers pretty well and today, I had to refocus on just running versus that little cheat that we tend to do when we know we are coming up to the end of a mile split.

Once I got past the trees cutting area, it was actually pretty nice running. It was in the shade, the temps were hot, but bearable and I wasn’t attempting to break any land speed records. It was all about getting to Tractor Supply in one piece. I knew that once I got out on Outer Civic Center Drive today that I would be suffering.

Guess what…I was right.

OCD was miserable. Luckily, just past the lights, Mary drove by and beeped the horn. This small thing invigorated me to get going to finish. Although I was a bit dispirited when I finally reached the Skowhegan Savings Bank Clock/Temp sign it initially read 83*F, by the time I passed it was 85*F and with the high humidity. running down that black hottop was damned miserable.

I just wanted to get the run over with at this point. So I just kept running.

A tough run, but a good one and even with all the distractions at the start, heat and humidity, I enjoyed the change of scenery and getting to run on a different course than have for the past few months.

Although when I got home and took off my right shoe I noticed that it was a lot darker than it had been and my sock was stuck to my right ankle with just a bit of blood acting as stickum. Which was kind of funny after about 3.0 miles, I forgot all about the blister…I guess I was suffering enough with other things that the brain shut-down the pain receptors around that blister, since it wasn’t going to kill me.

• Course: Home to Augusta Tractor Supply
• Weather: Partly Cloudy, 75°F, Feels like 76°F, Humidity 83%, Wind 2mph from SE  – I don’t know where the frigging clouds were, because where I was running, it was bright sunshine and as I said before on OCD the temps were 85*F, so miserable weather for running
• Distance: 6.23
• Time: 56:43
• Pace: 9:06

Add on an extra 0.60 and 5:30 for screwing up the watch at the start.

Splits:

• 1.0 – 8:54
• 2.0 – 8:51
• 3.0 – 9:16
• 4.0 – 9:08
• 5.0 – 9:21
• 6.0 – 9:14
• 0.2 – 8:38

Shoes: ASICS GlideRide – They did everything I wanted from them. Even though they aggravated yesterday’s blister, it was my fault for not putting tape over it before I started running. I don’t think any shoe would have down well without protection on that blister today. Otherwise they just did everything that I wanted from them.

Anything else:

It will be nice to just run in other places besides around the house again. Although I ain’t quite ready to take a chance on things quite yet. Maine is doing well with the pandemic response, but with all the people from away coming in, I have a feeling that staying up on our little hill community is probably for the best for a while longer.

I do gotta say thanks to the wife for giving the idea for me to run to meet them at Tractor Supply. It worked out perfectly. By the time I got there, they were bringing out the order and I hopped in the Van and got to drink my Coconut Water and relax/cool-down in air conditioned comfort.

I did come pretty close to doing 7.0 on Thursday again. 🙂