I couldn't have been more surprised.....

It is a cool 67 degrees here this Friday afternoon and we've had over 5" of rain in the last 7 days. Totally unheard of for Southwestern Kansas the first part of August and I am cherishing the coolness as I have an 18 mile run planned for the early hours tomorrow.  When I ran a very short 3 miles this morning to just open up the legs and hips after sitting on a plane and in a car for pretty much all of yesterday, I was thinking how nice it was to be 10 degrees cooler and about 10% less humidity than what I've been running in down in Florida. 

The first morning of our vacation to see our family I was running in a very swampy public area and thought to myself, how strange to no longer be concerned of badgers and rattle snakes nor bears and mountain lions.  Instead I had my eyes wide open and paying very close attention to the terrain as there could easily be alligators and LARGE, very very LARGE snakes such as pythons and boa constrictors.  On our drive towards Cape Coral we stopped and drove through the Myakka State Park and it brought to life just how much I really did need to pay attention.  Yes, this alligator is in open water out in the wild, this was not a zoo!

We stopped as well in Sarasota to visit the #1 beach in the U.S.  I picked up a hand full of sea shells (there were seashells everywhere) and put my feet in the water.  It was HOT!  We enjoyed a nice lunch at a quaint little restaurant in that area and in my grilled vegetable salad they had "king mushrooms".  I had never heard of them, and if you can see from the picture they are small but truly pack a strong earthy flavor.  I enjoyed my lunch immensely and so did the Mr. as he had fresh grouper made into a sandwich.  One of his very favorite kinds of fresh fish. 

 

 

When we arrived at our Son's home I realized just how smart it was to have gone ahead last week and ran my LSD early.  I had ran 16 miles on Saturday with friends and two days later ran a 15 mile LSD on my own as my training plan called for the 15 on Saturday while we would be visiting family in a very hot and humid part of the U.S.  It truly was SMART!   On Saturday evening when I was getting all my running gear situated for an early morning run to try and beat the heat, my 9 year old Grandson came up to me and asked if he could go with me.  Truly, I could not have been more surprised!!  Of course you can go, Buddy!

The next morning he was already awake when I got up and he asked me again if he could go and I reassured him that most definitely he could go with me and I would just come back for him.  I headed out for 4 solid miles and then came back to grab water and my little Mister.  He was so excited and he had the desire to run the entire distance we had planned.  Of course, that didn't exactly pan out and I never intended for us to run but instead use the "Penguin" plan.  To run, walk, jog, and repeat as needed but to really just focus on encouraging him, spending time together and the bonus was that I could use this time and miles as a cool down for me.  It was a win/win situation!! 

**So cool to have my Grandson each night ask me if he could go run with me and every time I said absolutely.  I really was so blessed that he instigated it every single time and that he never complained while we were out running.  We ran almost a full 5 miles together over the three days that we were there.  I will post in a day or so more about our trip.  Also, did you notice that in all three of these pictures my glasses are steamed over? It was HOT and it was HUMID!  I ran my training plan with major effort and then stopped back by their home to grab cold water and my little Mister.  I've missed him immensely since we began our journey back to Kansas. **