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Back to training

On the seemingly sound advice of Rob Powell, Tom Jennings, and others I am going to try to focus some effort in the coming month on training myself to perform in the heat. August is not likely to give us an ideal cool running day and I would like to be ready for what comes.

So today, around 1pm I went out for a run on my regular 5.33 mile loop that I use a lot. The temps were between 78 and 80 degrees and the humidity felt high, although I did not check it. I ate about 6 sport beans before starting, and took one handheld bottle for water.

The first check of how the heat was affecting me was at the first mile, and it looked good. I turned the first mile in 8:16 and didn't feel like I was pushing very hard. I have also had a pretty good cold which I wouldn't say a word about on here or to Kim prior to Mohican because I didn't want her worrying about me. I have been blowing snot like WalMart needs it and I am China. So combined with having done 31 miles pacing and a total of around 46-47 miles over the Mohican weekend and with the cold, I was pretty happy to be feeling good. The pacing miles didn't take THAT much out of me because they were towards the end of people's races and we weren't moving all that fast.

When the nose was freshly emptied each time, the smells running down my street were nice. Some of the trees in bloom are giving off a nice fragrant scent. I hit my two mile marker at the fountain at 17:32. I was thinking that meant I had kept the 8:16 pace, but my brain must have been foggy because that means I slowed down to 9:16 on the second mile. Anyways, thinking I was on pace for a PR of this loop for me, I focused on keeping up my effort level through the run. I mean training is training, and I need to work at improving if I want to get better/faster.

So coming down the last main road towards my house I can see that the time is close but by now I have encountered a pretty good headwind that I didn't remember as a tailwind going out, and I am wondering how much that is affecting me time-wise. I don't look at my watch often when I run, just at the key points if I remember (I enjoy looking around too much to be staring at my wrist!) Coming down my street which is the last little stretch of this run, I pumped out the energy to see how fast I could go. Final time at the driveway was 45:51 or about 42 seconds slower than PR for the 5.33 mile route. Not bad for a hot day, and I am sure that 45:08 PR will fall soon. I really want to average 8:00 per mile over the loop, so I am in the hunt for a 42:38. I will bag it, it is only a matter of time.

When I finished the route, I ran a cooldown lap around my block which I think is .3 miles, and the did 30 pushups and 30 crunches in the front yard....and then topped it off with one more all out grunting sprint down my street which is around 60-100 meters depending on where I start it....

I had to miss the Vertical Runner track workout tonight, but am thinking of doing their routine on the track closer to my house later tonight once everyone has settle down. I have been feeling like it is time to crank up the intensity of my training for awhile before I have to taper down awhile prior to BR100.