The heat and humidity stuck around. I survived.
Weight Check: 171.2, down exactly 1 pound since last week. I’ll take it. Mostly, that was my long run. We’ll see if I can improve on that, because I’d really like to get back down below 170.
| Day | Scheduled | Total Miles |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 5 miles easy plus strides | 5.74 |
| Tuesday | 3 miles easy | 3.11 |
| Wednesday | 20 minute warm up, 7×45 second hill repeats with 90 seconds in between, 15 minute cool down (or until 5 miles total) | 5.01 |
| Friday | 3 miles easy | 3.11 |
| Saturday | 9 miles easy | 9.01 |
Total: 25.98 miles
So close to 26 miles. I hate when that happens.
Monday, the weather was pretty miserable, although there were a couple of spots where there was some drizzle, and I guess it helped a little bit. My legs felt tired on the first mile, but they got better, at least until the strides at the end. I did walk for a bit after the 3rd, 4th, and 5th strides, but I still managed to make my last stride the fastest one.
On Tuesday, the weather was still miserable, but slightly less terrible than some of my recent runs. My legs were a little tired, not quite 100%, but they were good enough. I managed to speed up a little on each mile and was able to make a nice push at the end. I’ll take it.
Wednesday was hills. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, hill workouts are rough in any weather, so I might as well do them when it’s miserable out there. My legs felt a little tired during the warm up, and while they didn’t feel great during the main workout, I expected them to feel worse based on the warm up. I walked for about 30 seconds after each uphill interval, and for almost a minute after the last interval, but jogged slowly the rest of the time. Since the hill I was running on takes more than 45 seconds to run all the way up, I tried to position myself for the last interval so I’d need to push it to get to the top in 45 seconds, and it worked, the last interval was the fastest. I lengthened the cool down so I could get to 5 miles.I did push it a little bit near the end, I just wanted the psychological boost of finishing in under an hour.
On Friday, I decided I was tired of the heat and humidity. I decided to give my legs (and I guess my body, too) a break and I got on the treadmill today. It’s still mentally excruciating, but it’s a lot less humid. My legs felt fine. I went with a 11:46/mile pace until around the 2.5 mile mark, then bumped it up to around 11:19/mile until the end. The effort felt pretty easy, even near the end, but as much as I wanted to get it over with, I didn’t want to push too hard the day before my long run.
Saturday had miserable weather, and it rained pretty hard right before I started, so everything was wet. My legs felt a little tired at the start, but I didn’t notice it as much later on. I stopped for water pretty much once every mile, and had Gu just after the 5 mile mark. I had just enough left to speed up on the last mile.
Next week, I have a 10 miler on the schedule. The weather doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better any time soon. I’ll figure out a way to get through it. And who knows, maybe I’ll get a monthly wrap up for March or April done, or my recap of the Teal Diva 5K.