Swimming in Georgia

We went to Mom's in Georgia last weekend to spend some time with her away from our house and catch up on some maintenance things that need to be done. Saturday morning I headed outside to run the circle in her neighborhood. You may recall I did this at Christmas too, or attempted to I should say. While the road next to her house is pretty flat, when I get to the part that makes the big circle, there is a long downhill on one side and a short steep uphill on the other side. I didn't do much running on that road in December.
This time I went out and ran the first mile in about 11 minutes, What? How did I do that? The second mile was done in about 12 minutes. Still not believable. I was done with those two mile in about 24 minutes. I just looked at my watch as if it were crazy, and walked the last mile. Why did I walk? Because I had just gotten to the steep hill again and had hit my limit in that climate.
I think the reason I was running so well was that I was moving at a quicker pace than usual. Previously I had concentrated on just keeping myself moving, which usually meant about a 13 minute mile or so. Now I have been putting more effort into meeting a pace of between 11 and 12 minutes. That has improved my 5K time. The only problem is I want to do a 10K so I need to start adding miles on to that. Good news is the hayfields are getting cut so I will be able to run out there for a few weeks until it gets tall again. That is a really good work out so I can't wait to get started on it.
Now what about the title of this blog? Running in Georgia at 7:30 am is not like running in West Virginia at the same time. In WV you have to stay off the grass or you feet will be soaked. In Georgia the ground is dry, but the air is thick with humidity. When I got back to the house after that run I walked in and Mom asked me if I had run through a sprinker, my skin and hair were soaked. It took about 15 minutes for me to cool down enough to take a shower. I also proved the value of dry wicking clothing, my shirt didn't hardly show any moisture at all and my feet were dry. Doesn't mean I would have gone out to the store right then, but wasn't like cotton that is for sure. Well that was swimming in Georgia. Who needs a pool?