My next race is The Dirty Dash, a 10K in two weeks. I’m not really worried about time, since the whole race is through a mud/obstacle course. But I haven’t run over 5 miles in a month – since I was in Minnesota. While I’m sure I can go out and run 6 miles without a problem, during The Dirty Dash I would like to focus more on the mud and obstacles than the running. So I mandated to myself that today I could not put off a long run any longer, and went out to run a 6 mile out-and-back that I run fairly often.

September is tricky. It’s so cold in the morning, and it’s so cold when the sun goes over the mountains. Even though AccuWeather says it’s 68 degrees, and feels like 78 degrees an hour before my run, and obviously only got hotter in that hour, I really wasn’t that worried. It was breezy, it was a nice comfortable temperature when I stepped outside of the house. This was going to be a nice cool run.

I was so hot and thirsty. After two miles I nearly gave up and turned around. (This is after having my route determined for me due to the herding of cows…what was I going to do, run through them?) But I forced through it. I forced myself to the feed store (yep, this is a farming community), and from there forced myself to the Ward House (yep, this is Utah), and at that point convinced myself it was only a block to the end of the paved trail/park/turnaround point, and there was no point in stopping.

By then, I felt much better, and while I was still really hot and thirsty, enjoyed the second half of my run. One of the deals I make with myself on a run that’s hotter than I expect is that I can take off my shirt when I have a mile left. I don’t care what anyone else thinks- I just ran _ miles, I get to run in just a sports bra for the last mile. The temperature difference is immense, and it’s so nice for the last push. I’m sure some of the conservative farmers around here think its absolutely scandalous that I take off my shirt and run in a sports bra. I’m okay with that. I’ll be the liberal hippie runner girl. I don’t mind that label.

But geez, September, will you just put a sticky note on the door that it’s going to be hot during the day?