Monday, July 20, 2015

a pair of weekend 10 milers - and one went south!


my plan to run back to back 10 milers this weekend (building on last weekend's pair of 7 milers) started off fine - despite the soggy saturday morning.  i got in a solid 10 miles after the rain passed through - and took a bit of the heat along with it.  it was still very humid, but the relatively cooler temperature let me get in the 10.2 miles at an overall 8:07 pace (1:22:42).  i was plenty happy with that because it was my first double digit run in over a month!

in fact, with sunday's mileage, i would log my first 40+ mile week in over a month.  so the base re-building in the wake of 3 non-running weeks was coming along fine.  but sunday's run turned into anything but routine - it morphed into a death march after the 4th mile!  i was toast in the heat and humidity!  to put the run in context, i walked the nine mile loop 2 weeks ago in a 14:14 pace (when i was under doctor's orders not to run).  yesterday i crawled across the second half of that loop in a walk-run slog.  i did the entire 9 mile loop in 1:27:50, a 9:46 pace - and ducked into my nicely air-conditioned house and drank an entire 20 ounce watered-down gatorade in one slug!  then i sheepishly headed out and mostly walked the last mile (a half mile out and back).

contrasted with the 10 miler on saturday, the experience left me pretty stunned because i've done that loop thousands of times - and this is the first time i've ever crashed so badly.  maybe just a bad day - who knows. but this afternoon, in even tougher conditions - the heat index was solidly above 100 - i ran 6 miles in a typical easy pace (50:22, 8:08 pace).  and that included a comical stop at the high school field house for a sip of water - only to be told that their water fountain was broken!  so i had to use the bathroom faucet to cool off - and passed on actually drinking it!

on the positive side - all these heat wave miles have certainly speeded up my re-acclimation to summer running - haha :D

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