The Hottest Almost Half

Today's run was 12 miles, and it was a struggle to finish. I got started way too late, and the heat got the best of me today. It was 80 degrees out when I started, and at least 90 when I finished. At about mile 6 I started to feel the sun beating down on me and it wasn't pleassant. I tried to run as much in the shade as possible until I got to the water fountain by Caruth lakes, which was about mile 8. I cooled down by dousing myself with water and then reloaded my the bottles in the fuel belt. By mile 9 my shorts felt like sandpaper rubbing on my legs, and I was feeling nauseous. Mile 10 was thankfully downhill towards home, but then there was my least favorite hill, the one that goes slowly up towards Ridge Road west. I checked my pace and at that point realized I could probably speedwalk about as fast as I could slog myself up that hill. I felt a little like the guys in the old movies where the join the foreign legion and end up crawling through the desert looking for an oasis By the end of mile 11 the combination of heat and having taken in my gatorade/water combination a little too fast got the best of me. I had to boot. But then I felt better, rallied and ran the rest of the way home (VERY VERY SLOWLY, but still a jog). Then I stalked my house by running short little laps back and forth in front of it for the last quarter mile until I hit mile 12 and was done. Learned a few things today. 1). Start earlier when it's hot outside. I ran almost 1 mile per minute slower today due to the heat than I did last week's 11 miler. 2). The investment of good non cotton jog bras paid off. No chafing and lots of comfort ( if anything was comfortable about today).3.) Don't give up, fighting through it now on a training run will help me dig deep and do it later down the line when I'm at mile 20 and hit the wall. There's a reason it's called endurance running, and I'm glad I have lots of time to work on building up my endurance. I'm also very glad next week is a step back week before I build up to the next increase which will be 14 miles. I think when I run the half I'll be glad that I had today to learn from, and that I'll have some runs longer than 13 miles before the race.