Really Quickly...

I had another shot outta a cannon night on my run tonight where my legs were turning over like they were on fire (or en fuego as my butter rican mammis would say.) It felt great and I felt great and it's starting to make me wonder a bit.

Ya see, for a while this summer I thought I was dying - and not in an everyone is dying kind of way but in a reaper is knock, knock, knocking at heaven's door kind of way. I was tired, I was winded, I needed a water stop to climb the stairs of the 8th Ave L train station. Forget running. I'd throw down a couple miles and start planning on running past a hospital on the way back just in case. It was a bad time for the empire. I laid on my couch and didn't want to get up. I thought my lungs were infected by devils - or at least poisoned by moldy walls, a filthy city, and the imminent threat of cancerous polyps.

But I've felt pretty terrific lately, and it's not that I've been eating better, working less, drinking more responsibly, sleeping more, or anything that would point to the change. Fact is the only thing that's really changed is the month.

Which made me think...the weather? Really? Could that be the reason?

I mean I grew up in South Florida training in heat that would make Satan wear sun block. I went to school in Tallahassee which has one of the most miserable summer's on the face of the planet. But I've been in the City for almost five years now, and I don't think I can acclimate like I used to. It's almost as if I'm a super hero with super ninja endurance and my cryptonite is heat, (though I can point you to plenty of young ladies who will beg to differ with the fact that heat saps my endurance if you know what I mean... Because they're my running partners... Who I've slept with. Duh.)

I ran twice while I was back in SFLA last weekend and they were among the most miserable runs in my life. First one was on the beach at night and enjoyable for the first three so I'm not really complaining there, but the second was like running up a mountain with a backpack full of angry monkeys as evil gnomes hurled flaming rocks at me. Three miles felt like Badwater.

EDITORS NOTE: I just looked down and noticed that at some point during my run - which ended like an hour ago, I opened a huge gash on my leg that bled all over the place. I find this both disturbing and freaking awesome being that I think I know when it happened but I can in no way confirm. That's focus playa.

So is it really possible that I'm that affected by the heat? Is it the humidity? Is it poor hydration? What is it? And if it is weather related I wonder how much it doomed my Brooklyn Half considering the monumental turn of events that occurred as soon as I left the cool park to hit the warmer, exposed, Parkway?

Maybe I'll ask Wise Mr. Owl. Though I'm still a little pissed about that Tootsie Roll Pop trick that bastard pulled on me. Damn you Wise Mr. Owl. Damn you to hell!