73, 72, 70, 75, 74. Those were the temperatures this week at the start of my runs, and the humidity for each was was somewhere around 90%. Somehow, I survived. I also had an interesting long run, although at least this week, I managed to avoid killing my phone with sweat.
Also, it was my last “normal” week for several weeks.
Weight Check: 168.7 pounds, down 0.2 from last week. Well, I suppose it beats the alternative. It’s still too high, and there’s still too much Mountain Dew in my life.
There’s going to be travel next week (More on that later), so I have no idea how that’s going to affect my weight, and I also have no idea when I’ll do my next official weigh-in. It’ll either be Thursday before I leave, or the following Tuesday after I get back.
| Day | Scheduled | Total Miles |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 6 miles easy | 6.01 |
| Tuesday | 4 miles easy | 4.01 |
| Wednesday | 2 mile warm up, 8 x 1 minute uphill hard (jog down hill in between), 2 mile cool down |
5.61 |
| Friday | 6 miles (first 5 easy, last mile moderate effort) | 6.01 |
| Saturday | 12 mile long run (include hills if possible) | 12.02 |
Total: 33.66 miles
Hey, I finally reformatted the table to include my schedule.
Monday, I stepped outside, felt the heat and humidity, and thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I may have added another word before kidding. (Also, I probably should have saved that thought for later in the week.) My legs felt fine, though, and after a slow start, I got through the rest, and even finished strong in the last quarter mile or so.
I got a late start Tuesday and didn’t have enough time to drive over to the Y and get on the treadmill. You know the weather is pretty miserable when the treadmill sounds like the better option. My legs still felt OK, though, and I survived.
Wednesday was a hill workout. They’re not fun at any temperature. My legs felt a little tired during the last couple of intervals, but otherwise, they were OK. I did manage to get my fastest pace on the last interval, so there’s that.
Friday was the hottest run of the week. My legs felt OK, and I managed to speed up for the last mile rather nicely.
And then came Saturday. Lately, it seems like there’s always something with my long runs.
First, when I got to Freedom Park, I realized I left my watch at home. So I had to use RunKeeper. That meant I had to keep my phone available. Of course, after last week, I wasn’t taking any chances, and I had brought a Ziploc bag for my phone. So, yes, I had to use RunKeeper on my phone while it was wrapped in plastic.
Second, we got a decent amount of rain throughout the week. Nothing while I was running (either Saturday or anytime during the past week), and not enough for there to be any flooding on Saturday, but there was enough to wash some mud up onto the path underneath a few of the bridges. Running through the mud isn’t very much fun.
Adding in a few hills wasn’t much fun either.
But the worst part happened at the 6.36 mile mark. I had been keeping my phone in my pocket. I did take it out every so often just to check it, but for the most part, I relied on the audio updates from RunKeeper every 5 minutes. (Fun fact that I discovered today: The default RunKeeper voice has a name, Kat.) Well, at some point after 6.36 miles, I noticed that my average pace was really slowing down. I checked my phone, and sure enough, the time was increasing, but the distance was stuck on 6.36. Some further investigation revealed that somehow, bouncing around in my pocket, I managed to turn off GPS on my phone. After going through the steps to turn it back on, I have no idea how I managed to turn it off in my pocket. So I did some quick math, figured I’d go 5.66 miles to get me to 12.02, and started a new activity.
I probably ran about half a mile without my GPS. It’s hard to tell for sure. I do know it was a little over 8 minutes from when the GPS was turned off until I stopped RunKeeper, but I know I stopped at a water fountain in there, too.
Somehow I managed to run the 5.66 mile portion of my run faster then the 6.36 mile portion. Near the end of the run, my legs started to feel a little tired, but I still managed to speed up a little. I’ll take it.
Next week, I’m headed up to New York*. I think that’s the easiest way to describe it, because I’ll end up spending some time in New Jersey and Connecticut as well. Speaking of Connecticut, if all goes well I’ll be able to add it to the list of states that I’ve run in. (I picked up New Jersey in 2015, and New York…well, you know.) I had to adjust my schedule quite a bit, and it’ll be a step back week with no real long run. But hey, I’ll get to run somewhere that I’ve never run before. Oh and my next Weekly Wrap-Up (and Monthly Wrap-Up) will be late.