Sarah's Day: Happy 4th of July

Or the one where we tried to kill ourselves by running

A while back Cathy said to me “There’s a race in Red Wing on the 4th, and I’m not doing anything that day so you want to run it?”

And me, being game for a race said “Sure, I’ll run a 10 K on the 4th”. That’s really where I should have said “Have you completely lost your mind?”

Because here’s what really happened.

My phrase all that week was something about being hotter than balls outside, which doesn’t even begin to describe temps in the 90’s with heat indices in the triple digits AND dew points in the 70’s.

And the 4th was right smack dab in the middle of the heat wave. They didn’t cancel the race, but they did add water stops so in 6 miles we would have 5 water stops-bless their hearts.

Dave drove me and I ate his breakfast because I forgot mine. The temp at 8:30 AM (start time) was hovering around 80-dew point in the 70’s. Tina was there too.

Here in front of the river. Do we look a little fuzzy? It’s because the air was so thick everything took on a sort of an unfocused quality. Or we were hallucinating because of the heat. That is certainly possible.

When we started running the air was so thick I at first thought I wouldn’t be able to breathe. But after a mile or so you get used to misery. It was hot (have I pointed that out yet?) and there was little shade. But then we ran through a patch of wooded trail which I thought would be relief but in actuality was a concentrated sanctum of hot and even thicker air, if at all possible. It almost made you want to run back into the sun. Almost.

The sweeper guy on the bike rode by about mile 4.5 and asked if I was all right. That’s never a compliment to your good looks and fabulous running technique.

But I ran the whole way, only stopping at the water stops, and then, blessed Mother of God, we finished. At 86 degrees, dew point 75.

Only a little worse for wear

We are wet.

After the collapse. We continued to sweat for at least 30 minutes. I am 4 pounds lighter here than in the original pictures.

Oh, whilst we we were running, Dave was again loose with the camera.

I found this a little disturbing. This had Charles Lindbergh's name on it. So I asked Dave if that’s who it was and he isn’t sure. He said it could be a child that was somehow affected by Charles Lindbergh. I said that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. (I say that almost daily because Dave generally tops his previous day’s stupidity) Yes, the child looks affected but not likely by Charles L. Which only leads me to believe that Red Wing has some fanatical attachment to the man.

Fanatical. Although this could be Charles the father, who did indeed hail from Minnesota (and died trying to run for Governor, not once but twice-he died the second time, not the first time because that would mean he came back from the dead to run again and I am quite sure he didn’t do that) ANYWAY, it could be Charles the father, not Charles the aviator-who, by the way, invented the artificial heart because setting flying records just wasn’t enough.

This plaque didn’t explain it at all like I hoped it would.

But it did shed some light on this

And see, a little runner right there for scale. Thanks Dave.

A testament to humidity. Red Wing, 4th of July, 2012

But after all was said and done, this made it all worthwhile-

Recognize that step? That’s the hop, skip, and jump of a winner.

That lady in the pink is digging the Victory Dance. I think.

Whoa.

Later that day….

It takes a lot of tipping the Spotted Cow to get over that kind of heat.

Last weekend, after the weather finally broke, we went out to Barb and Tom’s again (Dave’s sister-see this post-only you have to wade through more race photos and crap to get to it-but it’s there). I didn’t take any pictures of anyone, but I did take some art shots