Six Miles on a Hot Afternoon

By Blue Tapp Scheffer

Last Thursday afternoon was 88 F, which is pretty hot for the first day of April. It was also my birthday, by the way! So this past Thursday, Craig and I had planned to do our final long run before the GO! St. Louis Half Marathon coming up this Sunday. Our goal was a 10 mile run but we quickly realized that a 10 miler wasn’t possible for us in that kind of heat. So we changed our plans to six miles but that was even difficult. We ended up walking the last quarter mile.

Heat REALLY affects running! You can acclimate gradually but this year the high temps popped out of nowhere and our bodies have been struggling to catch up. So here we are with the half marathon less than a week away and Craig and I haven’t accomplished a long run in several weeks. We’ll take it slow and just focus on having fun rather than completion time. I’ll post a race report after the race!

Let’s give a cheer for Dwayne, our intermediate runner, who will also be running the half marathon this Sunday! If you go to the GO! St. Louis website, and look at the rotating pictures in the top right corner, you’ll see our Dwayne featured front and center in one of the rotating pics from last year’s run.