This morning I decided to take Annie and Isaac for a run outside. Yeah, it was 80 degrees and humid, but sort of a pea soup humid instead of a full-on goulash (and on the Gulf Coast, we get a lot of goulash-y sorts of summer days). So, I grabbed my water bottle and started off.
About a mile away from the house, I started regretting my decision. It was hot. The kids were kicking each other. The two bites of banana I took with my prenatal vitamin (what the heck do they put in those things? arsenic?) weren't doing to trick of keeping the nasty vitamin toxins at bay. But I am not a wimp, so I pressed on. But about a half mile later, when I was at the furthest possible point in the run from my house, it happened. A big, nasty bug flew right into my mouth and I swallowed before I could spit it out.
On ordinary days, a bug flying into my mouth would be nasty. I even swallowed a bee once (and it stung me on the lip on the way down) when I was doing a long run in training for my first half-marathon. But today, since I was already feeling quite green to begin with, swallowing that bug was enough to set me over the edge. So for five minutes, I wrestled with reverse peristalsis, doing my best to keep the bug, water, vitamins and banana bites in my stomach. We were in a heavy traffic area of the subdivision, and the last thing I wanted to be doing was tossing my banana in front of all of the people driving to work. Finally, I won. But for the rest of the run, I kept imagining I could feel the bug climbing up my throat.
I have a feeling I'm going to be running on the treadmill for a while. It's cooler, I don't have to listen to the kids fight, there are fewer bugs, and I'm much closer to the privacy of my own bathroom if I need it.
--originally published 5/22/06
No comments:
Post a Comment