Friday, July 22, 2011

Every Day Gets a Little Better

This summer heat makes running pretty miserable. Knowing I may have to run 8 hours in this heat next month (at the Howl at the Moon race) scares me...but also motivates me to keep training. Train in the heat today and you feel tired tomorrow...but you get out again to run in the heat...and it gets a little better.  Not much, but a little better.  Training day after day leads to day after day improvements...almost imperceptible at times, but it's there. Baby steps add up. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Ran today on the treadmill at the gym. Wow!  Indoors, air conditioning, dry air, no sun...sweet!  I ran almost 3 minutes PER MILE faster with about the same heart rate as outside in the heat.  Felt great to run more quickly and recover immediately.  Guess I should take a break from the heat once a week to remind myself how fast I can be...or at least break the spell this darn heat wave has cast on me.  It's easy to get discouraged.  Today I feel good.  Tomorrow I'm due for another long run in the heat. In the middle of that run, I need to remember how I feel today.

4 comments:

denalifc said...

I'd say think Badwater BUT that is a dry heat.

Chris Ⓥ said...

Yeah, at least at Badwater you feel cooler when you spray yourself down...and sweating actually works. Now it's just a swamp out there.

GTI said...

Wow! That's an incredible difference between your "heat" heart-rate and your "air conditioned" HR. I don't do HR monitoring, so it's a good reminder to see someone's actual results like that. Makes me feel a little better about all my slow outdoor runs lately. :)

Chris Ⓥ said...

I was back to really slow outdoor running on Saturday. Finished my 18 mile long run (temps hit 90 at the end) and I was walking a lot--averaged 11 minute pace per mile!