It started out as a simple 5 miler on our normal route. We were running in the evening rather than our usual morning runs. It was nice to have been able to sleep in as the early morning runs are starting to get harder to do. The sun has disappeared and is not showing back up till about an hour to an hour and a half after we have already completed our run. We were excited to have a chance at the evening run and to be running in light. Unfortunately, as the temperatures start to decrease so do the length of days. We will soon find ourselves back to running in the dark whether it is morning or night. The 5 miler started out normal other than a little bit of extra heat that we are not used to running in. It is September and 80 degrees out there during the evenings. We are used to running in 40-60 degree weather. 20 degrees is a huge difference. The first mile was going great as we headed down the road and hit this little trail that has been created due to no sidewalk. We ran straight down the road for a mile and then turned down a county road.
This road is a great place to add on some extra mileage. It is a short road, but is almost exactly a mile long. The first half of the road is almost completely covered by trees. Along the entire length of the road is an irrigation ditch that could be full one day, but completely empty the next. There is a church on the corner, a house next to it, and then a power station. This is great because the rest of it is a wheat field which means there is not much traffic. Although, the traffic seems to be increasing which is unfortunate. This road is where the run started to get interesting. Little gnats were out with a vengeance. First, they started to fly into my throat. Yuck! I could handle that, but it was when they started darting right into my eyes that it turned into a problem. One little guy went straight for my right eye. I could not seem to get it out while running, so I took a moment to stop and get it out. I got it out and then continued on my run wanting to get off this road that I usually love running on so much. A few more hundred feet down the road another little nasty bugger decided to go for my right eye as well. This was no fun as my eye was already irritated from before. This little guy was a fighter. I could not get him out. My eye stung so bad I had to stop once again because I was having a hard time seeing. Even though I could not get it out, I was under control so I started running again.
As the road came to its end, we turned off the road, up over the grass strip and onto the sidewalk of the intersecting road. While I was stepping onto the grass my ankle twisted, but did not get hurt or sprained. The weird thing about the situation was that I felt like I could not control my body and what had happened to my ankle. I was running extremely sloppy which I felt like I could not control either. Was I dehydrated? What was going on? I did not know. I had drank almost the same amount of water as I normally do throughout the day, which tends to be a lot. I decided to stop and walk for a little while to see if that would help. I regained control back and then we pushed on forward. I was still feeling a little funny as we were nearing the 3 mile mark. It was then that I decided I should probably not continue on the 5 mile route and we shortened it down to just 4 miles. After I stopped, the gnat seemed to appear in my eye again. I could not hardly see out of it and it was starting to sting. I made it home and was able to water my eye enough for it to finally come out. I do not know what came over me as I did not feel sick or weird. I just couldn’t tell my body what to do. Shortening the route was fine as after having started running again, my body just felt extremely exhausted and still a little out of touch. I went home and had some tasty chocolate milk and water to continue my evening feeling normal. What a weird run it had turned out to be.