Saturday, August 25, 2007

Beat the heat

What a hot day! The worst was this afternoon, when it reached 35C (94F) with a humidex reading of 41C (105F). R and I were walking back about 2.5 miles from the pool and we were suffering. Luckily, I had gone out at 5:40 a.m. when it was a much cooler 75F or 23C.

I started the run in darkness, but it was light within 20 minutes. It was a really muggy morning, when you can really feel the soupyness in the air. I had the plan of running a few miles, then see I wanted to make the run the week's 14 mile run or the 6 mile version. After a bit, I felt I could make it through the run okay and went medium-long.

By the 6 mile mark, it was fully morning and lots more runners were out there. There were people on the Mt. Vernon trail obviously doing their own long runs - a group of about 20 runing in a narrow trail. I passed them and it was good to have company on the trail.

I explored a few different areas of DC and found the Maine Avenue Fish Market, which R and I will visit soon. It definitely smelled like a Fish Market (I worked at a fishery when I was in high school -- that job lasted about 4 months and I never forgot that smell).

I hydrated well for this one. I filled up my three small bottles for my fuel belt and brought a full bottle of Gatorade for the run.

Final run was 23K or just a bit more than 14 miles, done in 2:06:22 with a pace of 5:29K/8:50 miles. Tomorrow, a 6 miler planned and I'm happy that's all that's left until the recovery week starts next week.

2 comments:

Ryan said...

Way to go - those oppressively hot days are tough, but you'll be amazed at what kind of postive impact it will have on your training when you feel the cool race day conditions. Great job.

yumke said...

Yep, it's hot, and in the back of my mind, i'm wondering if marathon day will be warm as well.