Heat Index = O.M.G.

Archie and I went home the week of July 4th to see friends and family and enjoy a relaxing week away from the city.

Although I had to work the first couple of days, the week in general was packed full of fun stuff. One of the first highlights was the annual day-trip on the 3rd of July to Boston with the family to see the Dress Rehearsal of the Boston Pop's 4th of the July concert. My parents have been going for years, and whenever I possibly can for the last decade or so (God, I'm getting old...) I've been joining them.

We get there around 1 pm and get one of the first spots in line.

Around 4 pm they start getting people through security (lots of security this year...) and then you go out onto the lawn and stake a spot.

Now, it's no secret that I am a runner.

So my father has finally figured out a use for my little hobby. He hands me a big blanket, instructs me to push little old ladies and helpless children out of the way, and sends me SPRINTING for a front seat.

This may be what I have been training for all along.

Every year I continue to reach a personal best on the lawn. And this year was no different. Aided by comfortable sandals and a lack of stiff competition, we were about three blankets from the front of the lawn.

The view, without zooming in, was this.

Nice.

It was a lovely concert and a great day with my family, my sister's fiance's family, and a couple of friends. I love these little traditions and I LOVE WINNING THE GAME OF GETTING TO THE FRONT OF THE LAWN.

The next morning was the 4th of July. The celebration of our country and of freedom and of hot dogs and beer. To celebrate the day, I ran a 5K in the morning along with my friends Lauren and Christie. I had written back in March how excited I would be to run with Christie once she got back from Afghanistan, so it was wonderful doing this race with her and her fiance (congrats again, ladies!!)

We arrived bright and early at the starting line with nearly 600 others. I love that running is becoming so popular in my town!

We wore patriotic head gear.

Although the race started at 8:15, it was already toasty out and the sun was shining like it was high noon on the equator.

The route basically traced the parade route (which began a couple of hours after the race ended, so a few nice spectators came out early to cheer us on.) It took us through the main part of town and normally would be quite pleasant, although a bit hilly.

That day? I'm not gonna lie to you. The race was brutal. Absolutely brutal. But I managed to try to take a good race pic, because I am a liar and a fraud:

I look like I'm floating! Thumbs up!

Yay Christie and Lauren!

My best time at a 5K was last November and I was about 40 seconds off that time in this race. Honestly? I'm just proud I didn't spontaneously burst into flame. It was so. Incredibly. Hot. I believe they said the heat index was near 100 with humidity. At 9am. What?!

The sweating was off the charts. Simply astounding. When you reach a point where you realize that you weren't sure the human body was actually equipped to lose that much liquid is when you start getting concerned. There was one water stop where they gave me about 1.5 ounces of warm water.

I was thankful for the nice volunteers who were out on a hot day. But I was also like:

So, lesson learned: Running 5Ks in the summer can suck. 3.1 miles, 3.1 schmiles. Once it's that hot all bets are off. Might as well have been an Ultra-marathon for how I felt at the finish line.

In general I find this distance difficult because I'm not very fast, but I am very competitive and unnecessarily crazy. I don't have another 5K on the horizon for a while, instead focusing on building up my long runs (since Marathon training again is underway!) This one'll do me for a while, so I'm all good!

Fun race overall though ... in theory ... if I didn't think I was slowly boiling from the inside out and about to just simply die.

Yaaay....sweaty....Plymouth Rock....need...Gatorade....ahhhh.....

My other fun run while I was home was a long easy run around Plymouth with my cousin Anna! Anna has been living in Uganda for the last few years (yep, you heard right), so it was amazing having her visit and to go for a long [and still incredibly hot] morning run.

During our run, she was so excited to find out that we were passing Plymouth Rock. THE PLYMOUTH ROCK! Here she is very excited:

All in all, a great running week at home. Now I'm back in New York, and officially already up to double-digit long runs [again] as I embark on training for my 4th marathon. Hope to actually run a 2nd one this time. Allegedly.

And, like I always say in the summer...stay cool and embrace the treadmill. There ain't no shame for staying inside and watching an hour of Food Network or trashy TV to pass the time. Just saying.