Approximately a year ago, Beer Geek realized that his brother lived in the “path of totality” for the eclipse. He immediately made plans for us to visit South Carolina for a weekend. I, on the other hand, did not even have the eclipse on my mental radar until he informed me that I couldn’t run a Ragnar this weekend because I’d be in South Carolina. Umm, ok.
So, marathon training had to flex to fit around our travel schedule. This lead me to plan my 15 mile long run on Friday because I didn’t want to run a long run in a place I didn’t know and there was no way I could get one in before we left at 5:30am on Saturday.
Friday morning dawned hot and humid. This became the theme for my next few runs. In fact, I would have never have run 16 miles (yeah, we misjudged the distance) on Friday if I hadn’t been traveling this weekend. It was awful. Awful. The only high points were spending 3+ hours with my training partner, a yummy smoothie at the end, and a sports massage to work out the kinks. There was a lot more walking than I’d ever like to do, I was wringing sweat out of my skirt, and I ended up with a bit of chafing that had me screaming in the shower. But we got it done, despite 3 miles of walking and a feels like temperature of 1-5*.
After a surprisingly easy drive down 95 south, I got out of the car and could barely move. Ouch. But, since we have our priorities straight, we immediately headed out to a couple of breweries.
This may have resulted in me getting up a bit later than I planned on Sunday. Remember how awful the weather was for my run Friday? Well, South Carolina took it up a notch.
After I survived my very bad, no good, hellishly humid run, we again headed out to the brew pubs.
Monday morning, I did not even pretend I was going to have a good run. I just headed out for an easy 3 miles (and managed a 4th very slow mile.) Then it was time to shower and wait for the eclipse.
Which, in keeping with the theme of #fail for the weekend, was completely covered by clouds while a thunderstorm raged. On the bright (or actually not bright at all) side, because we were in the path of totality, it got completely dark and the street lights came on. It was actually really cool and amazing how suddenly the light changed to dark and back again. Beer Geek may already be discussing where we’ll be in 2024 LOL.
This was our last trip for the summer and I’m happy to be back home in my normal routine. It’s time to get back on track with marathon training – I just need the heat to end! Ragnar DC is coming up soon and the kids go back to school in two weeks. It’s been an incredible summer, but I’m ready for a little boring for a while.
How’s your summer going? Are you deep in training for fall races or have you just been running for fun this summer?
[inlinkz_linkup id=733258 mode=1]
Botswana is such a dry country – so even though it gets really hot, it is not humid! I couldn’t even imagine running in such conditions. Well done for getting out there and doing it!
Wow I don’t know how you run in that heat! It has been in the upper seventies here and very humid and I am dying. Great job getting out there!
Well, my summer has been on the boring side, but still way better than the last two. And up here it you could barely notice anything!
My sympathies on those runs. Great job getting it done!
We had clouds for our eclipse too–we weren’t in totality, but we had about 85%. The clouds parted briefly so we could see the eclipse. What was really cool was all the people at the hospital where I work huddled outside, sharing glasses. I just loved that!
It has been so hot and humid here in Virginia beach that my runs have nothing been special to talk about. Can’t wait for fall for cooler whether. I bet those beers were so refreshing after your runs.
That’s so cool! The eclipse was rather uneventful here in CT because it was kind of cloudy.
So far I’ve been running just for fun, but I have a 5k this weekend, and the weekend after that my training starts.
I was in Charleston in high school for a quick Memorial Day weekend trip, and OMG, going from Boston to that was, um, interesting. So much more humid than I was used to, and the mosquitoes. Eek!
Sounds like a fun place to watch the eclipse and for a run!
I also had to shuffle my training around two weeks ago for a wedding. I ran a marathon before work on Thursday and then 20 miles on Friday (took a vacation day). It was annoying, but part of the training-life balance. Hope you get your boring time soon!