What was NOT manageable, however, was running in these
temperatures with no acclimation. So deviating
from the plan was necessary: one of the short runs was dropped, another
advanced a couple days. Regardless, it
still was a 16-mile week, which is a success in my book.
The plan was: Whatever
the weather would allow for, but hopefully a 5-mile, a 3-mile or two, and an
8-mile long run.
The reality:
Tuesday –
5.0 miles, 50:41
This was the
run I pushed up a couple days. Tuesday
was the last day of “normal” temperatures before the heat came, so I cleared
out for an early lunch hour. Oh, man...
this one just hurt. The longest stretch I could run without stopping or walking
was 1.4 miles (so that 50 moving minutes took more like 65 actual clock
minutes, at least seven of which passed while I got sidetracked drank
water at the running store). I was glad for a slow work day – when I returned,
my face apparently matched the neon salmon color of my shirt.
Friday –
3.1 miles, 29:08
So Friday was the second-hottest day of the stretch, but it
still cooled down well overnight, and I’d arranged for a day off of work. After dropping the kids at camp I headed out
for an easy three miles. It was warming
up quickly, but the pace and path were familiar, and after not having run in
three days it felt pretty good.
Saturday
– 8.1 miles,1:26:17
Met up with the Math Teacher and her daughter for the first
three miles – the adults kept a nice easy pace and watched the teenager bound
away from us, gazelle-like… less than halfway through the first of two laps, it
looked like she’d lap us before we were done.
But she waited for us a couple times, before we lost sight of her (love
that girl!). Kept Math Teacher at some
fairly assertive splits: 11:07, 11:15,
11:20.
Parted ways after two laps, and I continued for the
five-mile loop. Sidebar – it was SO nice breaking it up like that, and especially
having company for part. This was the
longest non-race run I’ve ever attempted, and I’m not shy to say that I find
the distances mentally daunting. The
numbers look so big! Even though I know
next year, when I’m working on my marathon training, an 8-miler will just be
what I do at lunch. Yikes, who am I
becoming?
Off on my own now, I took the pace up near my “designated”
half-marathon pace and worked to keep it there.
At first I thought my splits were too aggressive, then I realized I was
running comfortably and what did I have to lose? Miles 4 (10:27) and 5 (10:21) were flat and
easy, Mile 6 (11:35) was The Hill*, I recovered quickly on Mile 7 (10:05) and
as usual LOVED the downhill-mile-to-Starbucks for Mile 8 (9:17) – ah-MAY-zing
how I run faster when there’s coffee at the end of the run!
The nice part? If I
run like this at the half, I will make my A-goal with time to spare. Yea, confidence!
Now the one thing I have to add to all this is some
stretching – I typically grab my coffee and head straight home. Yesterday I followed my longest-ever-non-race-run
with standing in the kitchen cooking all day and I tell you, my legs are STILL
furious with me. Might some stretching
have helped? Might it still help? Maybe once I get this posted I should grab
the foam roller and figure out what I’m supposed to do with it. Hm.
*I’ve whined about The Hill enough, but this time it didn’t
seem quite so bad. One of these days I’m
going to have to do a pretty detailed comparison of how much I’ve improved on
that mile. That could be a good thing to
see.
Planned for this
week:
Last week’s plan worked pretty well – I’m settling into a
pattern of a mid-week five-miler, plus a couple 3-mile sanity runs for the
workweek. And then I’m getting my long
runs up – next week I hope to do ten miles – my longest run preparing for the
half-marathon in September. The weather
this week is supposed to be much nicer (just 70s) so that ought to help.
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