August Heat

This week was hot! This picture was taken outside my extern site's office in Senatobia, MS. My first run in this heat was last Monday when the heat index was bordering 120. This was also the first run that I did not finish. I tried the Tour de Wolf, Seeking some shade. It was to no avail. The open grassy areas were smoldering. The sun was beaming down at my face at about a 60 degree angle. The breeze pummeled me like the exhaust from a red-lining Mack truck. I made it 8 miles and had to walk the last mile back to the car. I broke the rest of my runs up into two a day, morning and evening to save myself the extended suffering of the hot evening runs. On Thursday, Jessica and I hiked with Liam's carrier for 5.5 miles in the morning. My evening run started out just as hot, but by the 3rd mile, a strong northern wind dropped the temperature about 15 degrees and the rest of the run was pleasant.

The long run was displaced this weekend due to some event that was happening at Shelby Farms but I found another trail that worked out fine. The Wolf River trail is a four mile point-to-point in the swampy flat area along side the Wolf River. Blaize rode a mountain bike with me for the first 16 miles. It was a good run, crowded with some 50 other runners over the 5 hours we were on the trail. The trail was almost entirely flat and consisted of a reasonable soft sandy base. Mom, Jenny, and Liam joined us after 16 miles. I strapped Liam to my back and re-entered the forest for another hour and a half of hiking. My feet really started hurting at 19 miles at I was glad to be done and change shoes at 20.5. I took Sunday off trying to recover, gearing up for another hot week and a total of roughly sixty miles.