It’s been hot, hot, hot in Illinois the last few days. It was 95 degrees in the shade when I went out the door to run yesterday. There was a flat, dry wind blowing from the south. so as I trotted toward the start of my 4.5 mile running loop, I made the decision to run a little slower.

How much slower? Here are 25 examples of how slowly I ran yesterday.

1. I ran so slow yesterday my own shadow passed me up. 
2. I ran so slow that a fly laid eggs on me and they had time to hatch before I got home.
3. I ran so slow the moon went through it’s full cycle before I got back.
4. I ran so slow my thought bubbles kept tumbling off the top of my head and landing on the ground.
5. I ran so slow I passed a sun dial on the way out and it had come all the way around to where it had started on my return trip.
6. I ran so slow I was mocked by about thirteen snails. It might have been more but I could not keep up with the others as they slid by waving their little antennae laughing at my sweaty, slimy predicament.
7. I ran so slow a farmer cleared all the corn from a seventy acre field with his combine before I arrived on the return loop.
8. I ran so slow I could not even keep pace with the rate of movement by plate tectonics on the North American continent.
9. I was moving so slow on my run yesterday that a pair of robins built a late season nest in the crook of my neck, hatched and fledged their young and took off for migration before I got home.
10. I was trundling along at such a slow pace my Timex watched literally gave up, detached itself from my wrist and laid down on the side of the road while uttering the words, “It’s not worth keeping track.”
11. I ran so slow yesterday that a band of opossums bitched me out for crossing the road at a pace that even made them look good.
12. I was running so damn slow a chunk of road kill blew along the road at a faster pace than I could move.
13. You know how slow I was going? So slow that I got a text message from a sloth in the South American jungle bearing only two words: “YOU SUCK.”
14. It’s true. Then I got an email from one of Donald Trump’s porn star mistresses bearing a nude photo and Comic Sans message typed below it that read: “Make America Great Again, I Like It Slow.” 
15. If that isn’t slow enough for you, I was running so slow yesterday that Fermilab  invited me to trot around inside their retired particle accelerator so they can crash atoms into my nearly immobile frame and measure the results for Old Quark’s Sake.
16. I was so slow on the run yesterday \my IQ dropped 20 points from the sheer weight of my brain as it sagged into my occiput losing contact with the electronic impulses necessary to drive human thought.
17. I was so slow my selfie came out backwards.
18. I was so  slow that I was chased down and nearly eaten alive by a pair of tarsnakes. 
19. I was slow enough on the run yesterday I was ready to call myself a marathoner. Back in the day, that was not a compliment. It meant you were too slow to compete in “real races.” And yes, we were snobs because we liked to run fast.
20. I was slow enough on the run yesterday that a West Nile infected mosquito bit me and died on the spot because the thickness of my slow-moving blood blocked its nasty little proboscis.
21. I was so slow on the run yesterday a dozen Catholics offered to pay my way through purgatory just to move things along.
22. I was so slow that a Lutheran waved me into the church to hold their proscribed seat in the pews until next Sunday.
23. I ran slow enough to ensure that my soul will get into heaven with no problem because all my past sins got bored with my pathetic pace and raced ahead of me.
24. I was so slow yesterday that Yoda dispensed the entire history and knowledge of The Force to me by the time I got home.
25. I was soo, soo slow that when I got home my running shoes were there on the steps waiting for me to return.

It was a slow, slow run, in other words. But at least I got it done. There’s always tomorrow to go faster.