Thursday was an amazing morning, the weather was 66 degrees outside! Oh my goodness. I haven’t felt weather below 70 since early May. It was a glorious feeling and Janel and I took a little walk with our coffee. She actually put on a sweater going out and I threw on a long sleeve shirt. It was my first time wearing a long sleeve shirt that was meant to keep me warm rather than prevent a sunburn. Janel actually wears sweaters throughout the summer because she gets cold with her work’s A/C. Anything below 80 is cold to her and it’s like a superpower how she can deal with a Texas summer. I wish I could get cold from A/C but it doesn’t really cool me down much. But with the weather outside, I couldn’t complain. What a glorious joy that was to be below 70!

If I was more disciplined, I would have ran at 5 a.m. and enjoyed being able to take in deep breaths for the first time on a summer run. I could have ran for hours (probably not actually) and really enjoyed normal running temperatures. I slept in instead but still got a chance to soak in the 70 degree weather. I’d call it a victory!

The first thing I did notice was that I could still breathe in deeply at 70 degrees vs. the 90s. It was fantastic to start running with that comfort. Why do I live in Texas all summer? Who knows. Although we don’t have a hard winter in Texas for running, the summer definitely brings on my complainy-pants when it comes to the heat.

I decided to go for a 30 minute run and soak up the good weather. Also to celebrate the occasion of cool weather, I would listen to my favorite 60s-70s era band and one of the greatest of all time. Earth, Wind, & Fire baby!

With Dancing in September blaring from my Ipod and my lungs, I began my first running steps. My poor neighbors. At least the music sounded good to me. Each step in the first 10 minutes felt pretty amazing and the miles just flew by. Even the humidity was lower than expected! I should have bought a lottery ticket at this point.

The first mile came and went without much huffing and puffing. This run was certainly going better than my hill training earlier in the week. I stuck to the local park and the zero gain of elevation did not hurt my pace either. Why waste a good temperature day on pain?

Anyways, I was able to keep the pace at around 8 minutes per mile going through mile 2 and a little faster into the third mile. I decided to pick it up at this point and push for a seven minute mile to end the day and try for 4 miles around the 30 minute mark.

My body ended up saying ‘no’. At this point, the heat did end up in the low 80s and I ended up slowing back to the 8 minute pace. I decided to call it quits for running and end on a high note. As the day went on, it continued to pack on heat and the weather app on my phone recorded it at 102 degrees. Luckily I was inside at that point. What a big swing in weather. The weather station reported that it hit 103 degrees overall and it was our hottest day of the year. Weird to have that in September when a couple summers ago we had weeks of the weather hitting 100+ every day.

Overall, I managed to pass the 30 minute mark and ran around four miles. Pretty spectacular weather day overall (if I hadn’t mentioned it enough) and it made me excited for the fall miles to come. How did your first week of September come along? Is your fall weather what you are hoping for? Happy running y’all!