This morning I chose to do my standard long run-- a 10 miler. My longest runs since FL 70.3 have been 7 miles and I was super eager to get out there and tack on a few more miles. I was able to get out the door at 6:30AM, but I probably should have left at 6AM. It was a little toasty by the time I finished.
Unfortunately, I wasn't the only thing that was toasty out there. The neighborhood garbage was too! Normally I would't do a 10-miler in my neighborhood as the boredom factor is quite high, but I didn't feel like getting the cooler together for my ice stops this morning, so I chose to "ice" from my home. I never thought about the fact that today was trash day. Joy!
We've had a string of days (or is it weeks now?) where the heat index has reached around 105F. One e-weather station even reported 111F yesterday! Most people in my neighborhood put their trash out around 5PM the evening before pick-up. Down here, it's still around 93F at 5PM and the low at night doesn't dip much below 80F. Now, I know that in my own garbage can were the remains of last night's rotisserie chicken and a humongous watermelon. Not to mention a bag of cat crap and all of the dog poo bags since last Wednesday. Multiply this by the 100 other trash cans that I ran by this morning-- the same cans that had been sitting out since the last night-- and ugh! It was ripe out there! I wonder if Ronnie VanZant was on a summertime "garbage" run when he wrote Skynyrd's famous "That Smell"?
Alas, it seems that with every training session I learn a new lesson.
Lesson #121: I will not schedule a long, summertime AM run in the 'hood on garbage pick-up days.
8 comments:
I had a similar experience on my walk today (I'm on my mid season break too). 100+ temps and humidity are not good on trash day.
Amen! I remember when the city sanitation workers went on strike.....when I was pregnant. Your senses are heightened when you are with child and I suffered that summer. Nothing like the smell of garbage in the morning, ahhhh....
I can only imagine in your heat what that must be like.
I think that's the funniest post I've ever read. and the addition of the pic pointing out all the trash cans cracks me up. love it. gotta love the FL heat! the morning I left for WI, it was 89 at 4:00 am. ouch.
Nothing like 80F when you wake up and 100% humidity... but what great training weather. Crap, you can knock out 10 in this stuff, everything else is easy.
No crap smell in our hood on Sunday (we have a deed restriction against smelly trash) although running by the club's dumpster can be a real treat at times.
105°F, eek. I'm in trouble when we hit the eighties in Leipzig, because the air literally stands still! I prefer windy sea air, Scotland is fantastic in this way.
I can imagine that smell, but I don't want to! Did you finish your run? Did you use a nose clip from swim practice.
Have a great new week.
Oh do I ever understand THAT! There's a few canals I run across (bridges of course...ha) and the standing water smells soooooo bad! Then there's the roadkill out there baking...yumminess!!
Well Sherry...I finally agree with you on how bad running in the summer is here. I don't know why it didn't bother me before, but now I HATE it.
Hmm, I'm not sure why but I don't think I've ever come across this issue before. But I can imagine it being a smelly one, maybe good reason to turn the run into sort of a fartlek so you can go by the cans faster.
PS - Thanks for reminding me that I need to put the yard trash out!
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