Another week down! For the most part, week six was really a really solid week of training. I’m finally starting to feel like I’m making some progress.
Tuesday’s seven miler included a “feels like” temperature of 98°. It was a hot and sweaty run, but my body seems to finally be adjusting to the summer weather because I kicked some serious butt. My paces are still a little slower than I need them to be, but with ten more weeks of training and things feeling like they’re coming together, I can be really happy about an 8:26 in that kind of heat!
Wednesday was slated to be even worse in the heat department. I was too tired to get myself out of bed early enough to run before work even though all I had to do to fit in a run was wake up normal time since I was working from home. In the afternoon, I had to take Hattie to the vet for her final round of distemper shots and it was hot has heck out. I was not looking forward to ten miles in a “feels like” of 105°, but I knew it had to be done. I waited until around six to get ready to run, but it hadn’t cooled down any. Then, I got super lucky while I was doing my warm-up routine inside and a big thunderstorm moved in. The temps started to drop a little, but there was a lot of thunder off in the distance. I knew running in that wasn’t exactly the smartest thing, but I wasn’t going to miss my run because of it. I said “screw it” and went for it. Things started off alright, but it was still a bit steamy through the first mile. The thunder was picking up so I started counting the time between lightning strikes and the thunder. I figured if it got too close, I’d head home. Around mile two, it started to pour. Heavily! I spent the next four miles running in a torrential downpour. The sidewalks were flooding and there were puddles calf-deep. I could only see one or two sidewalk cracks ahead of me, but it was incredibly awesome and refreshing! I love running in the rain in the summer so I was really enjoying it! And the rain cut the temperature a ton so I was really able to pick it up and feel great. Unfortunately, the lightning and thunder kept increasing until the time between them was less than a second. Since I was miles from home already, there wasn’t much I could do about it at this point so I just continued on. Though, I’m not going to say I wasn’t at least a little scared when the sky was lighting up as bright as day and I could see bolts very nearby. All-in-all, though, it was a solid run with the last few miles kicked at close to marathon pace.
I took Thursday easy with just a slow three miles since I had a four mile race on the Fourth. The race was great and I nailed my goal. Afterwards, we spent the evening with some friends at a party. I brought my “death burgers,” as I call them and there were a hit. I’ve never had anyone else try them before so I wasn’t sure what people would think, but the batch came out really good and there weren’t quite as spicy as normal…which is good for regular people.
I took Saturday easy and rested instead of running so I could have a good long run on Sunday. We were a little slow getting out of bed on Sunday, but we knew we were going to head down to the towpath so we’d have some extra shade from the heat. We each had 15 miles on the schedule and decided to run together the whole time. The first eight miles of the run were pretty solid. We were mostly on pace for where I wanted to be with the last couple being a tad on the fast side, but I was feeling reasonably good. Then, we swung back to the car to rehydrate and take our goos. This is where it all started to go wrong. I think we took too long and cooled down too much. When we started back up again, we both felt awful. My legs felt tired and tight and we both kept getting cramps. One of us would get a cramp so we’d stop for a second and then, as soon as we started back up again, the other would get a cramp and we’d have to stop again. It was brutal. I ended up cutting the run when we got back to the park at mile 14, which felt like a minor miracle itself. I wasn’t feeling well and knew the last mile wasn’t a good idea. I promised myself I’d go back out for another three in the evening to make up for it, but by mid-afternoon I was really regretting making that promise to myself! Still, I kept it and did the three at what my goal pace for the end of my long run was. So instead of doing 15 on Sunday, I totaled 17. I’ll take it.
Overall, I’m happy with the way the week went. Sunday’s long run being a disaster was sort of to be expected after a whole week of running hard so I’m not too upset about it. I’m looking at things as a whole and I feel like I’m making progress and going in the right direction.