Call the Zombie Patrol for a Pickup

Like a zombie lurching through a heat-stifled town, as if apocalyptic fires were burning everywhere adding to the heat, I plodded four miles this morning as the heat of the day built up rapidly.  The hottest June on record last month, and July is headed for another heat record.  With high temperature and excessive humidity, it's slated to feel like 110 degrees later today here in DC.

I went 3.2 miles early on Wednesday, another scorching day where it felt like 100 degrees when the heat built up.  I finished my run then totally drenched and feeling lightheaded and slightly sick, just like today, and I spent the rest of that day in my house recovering from the enervating effort.  I feel better today, so maybe I'm becoming acclimated to the sapping heat.

I feel good about my running right now.  I was out of running for the last two years while I recovered from an achilles strain and then was felled by a retina tear which required four surgeries to heal and nearly took my sight in that eye.  My last surgery was in early April and on May 1st I started running as I was fully healed.  Coming back was (is) slow and hard; my first day I targeted running a mere half a mile, slowly, and I had to walk the second half of that "run."

But I have been keeping at it, running three times a week, stretching my calfs and achilles before and after each run assiduously, which I never used to do, and slowly building up the mileage, first a half mile, then three quarters of a mile, then a mile, now I'm up to three-mile runs each time, albeit very slow and plodding, with today's long run for the week of four miles.  Whoot, I cracked double digits after two and a half months with ten miles for the week.  It's paltry progress but I'm keeping at it, taking it slow and steady, and I no longer feel like I'm going to die each run.