Hard Day in the Heat

I wanted to get up early and run to beat the heat.  I also wanted to watch friends run the 4 mile 4th of July race.  I failed at both.  Instead, I was forced to run in the heat around noon.  I don't know the exact temperature, but it was probably around 90 degrees.

I've been doing too many slow paced runs lately.  I've been running challenging course, but have just been pushing myself to finish, not pushing the pace.  Today, I opted to pick up the intensity a little (even with the heat).  I decided to go to Sand Island and run the D&L Canal Towpath.  I figured there would be shade there to provide some relief.

I haven't run there in a long time, so I forgot that the beginning wasn't shaded.  I started off by walking right by the fireworks that they were preparing for tonight.  I wish I would've got a picture.  I did a solid warmup first mile.  Thankfully my wound doesn't bother me too much early on, so I can start at a decent pace now.  The first mile was almost all in the sun.  It was pretty hot, but running with a shirt on definitely helped.

After warming up, my plan was to run the middle three miles of this five mile run fairly hard.  The path was nice and flat.  I had no time goal, just effort.  Early on in the fast segment, it seemed like it would be tough to keep up a good pace.  I just kept pushing though.  There was a little bit of a breeze and as I went further along, I encountered some shade as well.  Because of the shade, I elected to run out farther before turning back around.

I kept pushing hard until I hit the three mile point.  Both of those first two fast miles were just over an 8 minute pace.  That's definitely faster than any of my training runs have been up to this point.  The only thing that was faster was my 4 mile race in early June.  I ended up running to the end of Freemansburg before turning around.

The beginning of the last mile was frustrating.  There were some geese in the canal.  For whatever reason, they couldn't wait to get on the towpath.  Rather than doing so after me, they went right in the path with nowhere to go.  I kept running behind them, but I had to slow my pace.  They sped up and ran fairly fast themselves and eventually turned off the path.

That cost me some time and it was getting very hot, but I just kept pushing.  The last hard mile seemed pretty long.  I kept checking my watch.  I knew I had to continue running hard though.  Early on, I had tried to focus on form some.  During the last fast mile, I kept reminding myself to keep strong form.  My dad was telling me that I run to stiff.  I know that is something that I need to work on.  Even with the issue with the geese, I still ended up running a pretty fast 8:09 mile.

The cool down mile seemed to take forever.  I was starting to hit a lot more sunny stretches.  It felt like I might be chafing a little.  Bodyglide has definitely helped with that the last two days.  The other problem is that because I ran farther out, I had to walk about a mile back.  That was brutal too.

I keep forgetting that I shouldn't wear gray shorts in the heat.  The sweat shows through and I had major swamp ass as well as being soaked on the front side.  I'm sure that didn't look good to all the people biking or walking on the path.  Even with all the sweat, there was only minor chafing.  I was concerned a little because the shorts I wore didn't seem to fit very well.  I didn't have any problem though.

Today was great workout.  Now that the Blue Eagle 5k is only a month away, it is time to start working on my speed.  I ran the middle section at a little over 24 minutes.  Maybe it is too ambitious, but I'd like to break 22 minutes for the 5k.  I'll definitely need some more speedwork to do it though.

Tomorrow will be the usual group run at night with the LVRR.  I'm not sure what the pace will be.  I do hope fairly fast though.  Since I ran at lunch today and it is at 6 PM tomorrow, I should be well recovered for the next run.  On Friday, I might run at South Mountain in Emmaus.  I haven't done that in awhile.  I do like running there, but it is just a little far.  I offered to help with the LVRR family hikes and one of them is at Walking Purchase Park near Fountain Hill.  I only ran there once, so I might have to run there next week.  I need to keep a good mix of challenging trails and fast, flat running.  Saturday is the run I'm really looking forward to.  It is the group run at Trexler.  Only one week until the Quadzilla.

 5 miles - 42:43 (8:33 pace)