Happy Father’s Day to all of the Dads out there in general, and in particular, the winner of the 70+ age group at the 2017 Teal Diva 5K. (Part of me wishes I had congratulated Mom for winning her age group when I posted on Mother’s Day, but then, that would have spoiled my race report.)
I found out the hard way that the armband that I’ve been using to carry my phone isn’t exactly sweat-proof, despite claims of being waterproof. Well, I’m getting a new phone, although on the plus side, my old phone came back from the dead after it dried out completely, so the transition will be a little bit more smooth. I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to safely carry my phone during really sweaty runs like Saturday.
In spite of my armband troubles, and the fact that it was 72 degrees and really humid, I’m actually really happy with my long run this week. I didn’t expect that either.
Weight Check: Do I have to? Sigh, OK. 168.9, up exactly 2 pounds from last week. I’m not happy at all with that. The only thing I can say was that was before my long run, since I drove up to my parents’ house (for the 2nd week in a row) later that day. Now I have to buckle down this week, when I’m on call for work. I swear, running in the heat sometimes feels easier than trying to manage my diet.
| Day | Total Miles |
|---|---|
| Monday | 6.01 |
| Tuesday | 4.01 |
| Wednesday | 6.01 |
| Friday | 6.01 |
| Saturday | 11.01 |
Total: 33.05 miles
Another long (but good) weekend means I haven’t reformatted my This Week’s Runs table to include what each run was scheduled to be. The short answer is easy runs every day except Wednesday and Saturday.
Monday was the best weather of the week, but my legs were still a little sore. I think during the previous week, I was doing my bodyweight routine, and I think I went a little too heavy on the leg exercises. I’m going to tweak the routine a bit, maybe replace some of the leg exercises with some that will work my core, and see how it goes.
During a lot of my runs, if my legs are sore at the beginning, the soreness tends to go away after a mile or two. This run went kind of like that. The problem is that right around the time that my legs started feeling good, nature called. I put it off, took a few walk breaks to avoid having an accident, and made it to the end, but my pace on the last couple of miles wasn’t what I would have liked. (Considering the alternative, I’ll take the slightly slower average pace.)
Tuesday, I decided that my legs needed a break, and despite the protests from my brain, I got on the treadmill. I stayed at a steady pace, 10:43/mile, for the entire run. It definitely helped my legs, even if hurt my brain.
Wednesday was my first official fartlek workout, even though I’ve done some interval runs the last two years that were kind of similar. I started out with a 20 minute warm up, then 5 x 3 minutes hard with 2 minutes recovery in between, then a cool down of at least 15 minutes to get me to 6 miles total. (Spoiler: At my pace, my cool down took longer than 15 minutes.)
It was a little more humid on Wednesday, but it wasn’t too terribly hot, only 66 degrees. Once I warmed up, I ran my intervals, and it went pretty well. I was shooting for 8:25-8:30/mile pace, and my splits were 8:45/mile, 8:46/mile, 8:35/mile, 8:28/mile, and 8:18/mile, so I got better as I went along. My legs felt a little tired at the end, because I had really pushed it, but there was no soreness, so I was pretty happy with the resutls.
Friday was warm and humid, uncomfortable but not completely unbearable. My legs felt fine. I kept it at an “easy” effort until I started pushing in the last quarter mile or so. It was a pretty uneventful run, which isn’t necessarily bad.
Then came Saturday. The weather sucked. It was 72 degrees and really humid. If there was one bright spot, it was overcast the whole time, so the temperature stayed pretty steady, although that also meant the humidity stayed steady, too. I was scheduled for an 11 mile run, with the last 2 miles at a moderately hard effort. OK.
I’ve noticed that when I have a long run in the heat, I can usually keep my pace pretty slow for the first mile, while my legs are still getting warmed up, but after that, I sometimes need to take walk breaks, not because my legs are tired, but because I’m running too fast and that’s the only way I can slow myself down. Well, somehow, during this run, I managed to keep my pace fairly slow for 9 miles. The only walk breaks I took were at water fountains. I managed to hover around 12:00/mile for most of my miles, with mile 6 (when I stopped for Gu) noticeable slower, and I slowed down a bit on mile 9, knowing that I had two tough miles to go, so I tried to save my energy.
When I got to the 9 mile mark, I sped up, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much energy I had left. I had hoped that I could get down to around 11:00/mile. I somehow managed a 10:27 and 10:29. This was a pleasant surprise.
So, yeah, that was a pretty good run. (Even if my phone got sort-of ruined.)
With my upcoming travel (sandwiched around a full week of on call for work), this is going to be my last “normal” week for a while. I’ve got a hill workout and a 12 mile long run on the schedule. And it’s going to be pretty freaking hot, too. Hopefully I’ll find a way through it.