I didn't get out to run in the morning yesterday. I had a work order in the afternoon and then since it was Mother's Day, we took my mom to a casino near Scranton. Therefore, I skipped my usual Sunday run. Instead, I opted to used today's normal rest day for a run.
I was considering heading out in the morning, but it was getting much warmer in the afternoon. The high was supposed to be in the 80s and that's right around where it was when I started. Normally, I'd want to run when it was cooler, but I need to start adapting to heat for my summer marathon.
I headed out to Sand Island. I hoped to run 10 miles total. The plan was to head out 2.5 to 3 miles in the first direction and then finish up in the other direction. I was hoping to run a little hard, to push myself in the heat.
Of course I wore shorts and I also went shirtless. I need to practice running with my handheld, so I brought that along too. I knew it would be hot, but I still wasn't quite prepared.
I headed west along the canal toward Allentown. The leaves on the trees are starting to come in, but this is a mix of trees and sun. It didn't feel too bad at the start. I was pushing a little more than I probably should've. I knew the run was kind of fast when the opening half mile was under an 8 minute pace. I didn't slow down, I tried to stay consistent.
This first mile was a 7:44. I was getting quite hot already. I didn't push more, but the pace got quicker and quicker. I tried to drink a lot, but it didn't help. I was starting to overheat. I had passed a guy and woman running, with their dog behind dragging its leash. Outside of that, I was alone.
Mile 2 was way faster than it should've been at 7:09. This would've been great at the end of the run, but not now during this hot day. I pressed on. I thought about turning around at mile 2.5, but I really wanted to get to mile 3 or 3.5.
Finally, I turned around at mile 3. It was getting too hard and too hot. This mile was a 7:03. No question it was too fast. I decided to just back it down, so that I could finish the run.
The problem is that once you start quick, you can't seem to slow down too much. This mile was much more pedestrian, but I was already overheated and couldn't recover. I struggled with it so much. I pushed on to the end of mile four. This mile was a 7:26.
It was just too much and I had to quit. I don't want to overdo it in the heat and end up with more serious problems. I was glad I didn't go out farther, because I already had a 2 mile walk back.
The walk back was actually great. I thought of how hard this run was and how much of a challenge trying to adapt to the heat over the next two months will be. I love training challenges. I'm already looking into it and studying different techniques.
Since my race is at night, I think running in the hottest part of the day during the summer will help. It will make it easier. I think I'll run long and slow then and run shorter and faster stuff in the morning. I hope that works.
Since I was disappointed in the first run and still had energy left, I decided to head to Lafayette's Fisher Stadium to run the steps there. I figured that that would be a quality workout on a hot evening. It was a little cloudy when I started. I haven't done steps in awhile. I need to start doing different, challenging workouts. I want to run a lot more shorter, harder and faster stuff.
I began with a mile warmup on the old track around the stadium. It's not quite a quarter mile, but close. I ran a fairly brisk warmup pace of 7:15. The legs felt good and strong. There was a young girl run/walking and I passed her at one point. Some other people were doing drills and I think some football players were finishing up a workout.
I wore a singlet, but that only lasted for the warmup. It then became a towel as I did my steps. I decided that I would try to run hard up them, then recover by coming down them slowly. I'd take a brief rest then and go at it again. I wanted to do 2 sets of 5. Since I haven't done this in awhile, I wasn't sure how challenging it would be.
The first one felt pretty good. This is interesting because the first 2/3 of each climb seems short and choppy steps. They seem easy, but right after the tunnel, I think it get steeper. They seem to get noticeably more difficult then.
The first one took 27 seconds to get up. Most of them were between 26 and 28 seconds. It is hard to make up time. I forgot to stop my watch at the top of the second one. It is slower on the way down, so the overall time is about a minute for each of these.
I tried to keep the recovery between reps to a minimum. The heart was racing pretty good. I stayed consistent throughout this first set. When I'd get to the top, it was tough, but I recovered well on the way down.
A young college student began running steps too. Instead of running the same set over and over again, like I was doing, she ran each set of steps in the stadium. That is actually a good idea. The main stand is bigger and harder and the opponents side is much easier. She skipped my steps.
In between sets, I decided to do a recovery loop around the track. That was kind of slow, but I still didn't totally recover. Maybe the heat was getting to me.
Things were the same with the second set. It was easy at the bottom of each rep and then got tougher at the top. Then, I'd recover again. I wouldn't say any of these reps were any harder than any of the other ones. I was consistent. It is difficult to push and run faster on any of these. I once ran one at 26 seconds, but you can't make up much time on these regardless.
I think these were great form drills in addition to being slightly challenging climbs. Maybe next time I'll do more, but with a big race in 6 days, I didn't want to overdo it. After doing 10 of these, I ran a cooldown.
I wanted to do a mile cooldown, but I was at 1.7 miles when I started it. Therefore, I ran 1.3 more easy miles to get to 3 miles today. The one full cooldown mile that I did was still a 7:50 mile.
Since I was at a turf football stadium, I decided that I would do some form drills on there. I rarely doI do these and I need to start adding them to the mix. They might help me improve, if I'm consistent with them. I ran 6 strides, 6 high knees and 6 kick butts.
At first, I was going to run these 30 yards, but that didn't feel far enough. Therefore, I went to 40 yards for each one. I didn't give myself too much recovery between each one. Usually, these are run after an easy day. Now, I see why. They were quite hard and my heart was still racing. I almost felt like I was close to getting dizzy too.
After these were all over, I decided to run 2 sprints for the fun of it. Each were a full 100 yards. On the last one, I was dead and looked over and saw the 40 yard line. I still had a long way to go.
All in all, I had a very productive day. I need to work on adapting to the heat and also doing different types of running that I'm not used to. I need to start tweaking things. I was soaked by the end of both workouts, so I guess that was a good day.
I don't think it will be as warm tomorrow. Maybe I'll run longer and slower. Doing 8 miles would be good. I want to back off this week, but not by too much. I may even run a 5k on Thursday evening, just to keep working on my speed.
Afternoon Run 4 miles - 29:21 (7:20 pace)
Evening Steps 3 miles - 29:40 (9:53 pace)
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