Week 4 - HOT, HOT, HOT!!

After completing Week 3 of training I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I had made it through the 3 minutes of hell without my lungs bursting out of my chest.

Ready to start week 4 and see what was in store.  I had fallen behind schedule so I decided to do two days in a row....unfortunately, I didn't plan on the weather being soo humid in the morning.

Saturday morning I rolled out of bed and got myself moving around 10 am.  OMG!!  The heat hit me like a solid wall but I had decided to complete the run so I headed out.  As I was running my first 3 minutes, I thought maybe I had made a mistake in running in the heat.  I convinced myself that I needed to train in all weather because I wasn't sure what the weather would be like on the actual day of the run.  I made it through the first 3 minutes and though YAY!  Then she told me to run for 5 minutes...OH BOY.  I stopped the negative thought and convinced myself this wasn't an issue.  I had completed 3 minutes, 2 more minutes shouldn't be too bad.  WRONG!! When she came on and told me to walk...I was in heaven...short lived though because the walk was not a long one.

By the time I got to the second 5 minute run, my lungs were burning and my legs felt like lead.  I had to dig really deep in order to push through it.  When she said 1 minute to go, I took a deep breath and started to count to 60 seconds on my own.  For the record, don't try to count to 60 seconds when you are exhausted and ready to collapse.  I counted faster than the timer and so when I finished and she didn't come on to tell me to cool down, I found myself feeling sooo frustrated.  I refused to stop because I was SOOO close but at the same time, I was tired and sore I just wanted to drop.

When she finally said I could start the cool down, I actually started to cry out of sheer gratitude that it was over.  The older couple that were walking along saw me and looked concerned so I explained that I was training for a run at the zoo and just finished a very challenging training run.  They smiled and congratulated me.

I walked into my air conditioned house and literally collapsed on the carpet in the living room.  Tomorrow I need to do this again...getting up at the crack of dawn.