I’ve heard of heat exhaustion and lack of judgment from dehydration…I’ve just never experienced it before…here’s my story.

So, I decided that I would run to my friend’s house yesterday morning. I have been to AZ a few times since I moved away last summer and had yet to see her new home or her new baby (who will be a year old in a few weeks). I suppose I could have driven over, but I thought, why not run? Why not run? That right there should have been indication enough that something was seriously wrong chez moi.

When I told Vicky I would be running, she offered to come pick me up, but I turned her down. The run would be good for me. She gave me directions Monday night so that I could find it. I calculated the distance and knew that it was a little under eight miles away. I thought, as long as I got up early enough, this would be no big deal. I got up, got dressed and headed out the door with my water bottle. Now, from my run on Saturday, I knew I should have taken two bottles, but that seemed a little cumbersome, so I didn’t. Bad idea.

I had run about 3.5 miles when I realized exactly where Vicky’s house was. I mean, she had given me directions and I knew the distance, but I hadn’t thought too hard about them…and then, suddenly, I could picture her neighborhood and it just seemed so far. That, and by this point it was about 90 degrees outside and I was out of water. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had no cell phone on me, or money with which to use a pay phone. Turning around and going back to my sister’s would have taken almost as long. I had quite the conundrum.

Thankfully, there was a Circle K on the corner, so I headed over. There were pay phones on the outside, but I had no money, so they didn’t help me at all. I thought I would go inside and ask to use their phone, but then I figured if I asked one of the clerks to use the phone inside, he would just tell me to use the pay phone. This caused me to hesitate (I can’t handle rejection…in any form). I loitered for a bit in the nice air conditioning of the store, went back outside and debated what to do, went back into the store, then back outside again. I’m sure these clerks were looking at me thinking, “Wow, if she thinks she’s being sly about shoplifting, she really needs to rethink her strategy.” After leaving the Circle K for the second time, I decided to just suck it up and run. Yes, I would rather run 4.5 miles than ask to use a phone and get rejected. I am pathetic.

I was going to be much later than I had told Vicky and she was on a schedule, but I didn’t know what else to do. I got about a quarter of a mile down the road (did I mention that I have little rocks in my shoe at this point and I can feel new blisters forming…along with the fact that my water is now gone?) and decided there was no way I could finish. The sun was beating down on me. I was exhausted from the heat. I was out of water. I just started picturing myself passed out, on the side of the road, my skin crisping in the sun, dust blowing over me. Well, you get the picture.

I headed back to the Circle K (yeah, that’s not suspicious) and finally found enough courage to ask to use the phone. Surprisingly, the clerk just said “sure” and found the phone for me. I called Vicky and she just started laughing. I hadn’t said two words and she knew. I told her where I was at Queen Creek and Chandler Heights and that I would be heading north on Queen Creek (at which point, Vicky kindly told me I couldn’t head north on Queen Creek because it ran east/west…yep, I couldn’t even get the road right) and she headed out to pick me up. At this point, I knew she was coming and I suddenly had a burst of energy. I started running up the road with all the energy of someone who really does love running. I managed to get in almost a mile before she pulled up, laughing.

Lessons learned:

1. I have awesome friends who don’t hesitate to laugh at me when laughing is deserved.

2. The clerks at the Circle K on Power and Chandler Heights are really nice and probably didn’t assume that this girl in running get up with an iPod was going to shoplift.

3. Running without enough water is just stupid.

4. Running farther than three miles in Arizona in June is just stupid.

5. Running without a cell phone or money to use a pay phone is just stupid.

6. When a ride is offered and you don’t have to run 8 miles for training, not taking the ride is just stupid.