A week of ups and downs

Okay, there have maybe not been ups and downs this week, but more 'up' and 'down.'  Here's the breakdown:

Up - treadmill running.  Ran 3 miles yesterday like it was nothing.  No need to walk or anything.  Sweet!  I suspect the gym temperature is more amenable than last summer.

Down - running that takes place outside. 

I decided to modify this week's schedule since I am traveling on Saturday and have to be at the airport relatively early -- too early for me to be motivated to get up and run.  So this week is 5-3-5-3x1, running from Tuesday to Friday.  Tomorrow I have to do the treadmill due to other obligations, but for 3M x 1 that won't be bad at all.  On Sunday, I have my long run, which will be in Philly and I get to run up the Rocky steps.  For real.  It pays to know runners in other cities who can let you know about the best routes!

Back to Tampa: there was some good news about the outside runs that were ick.  Both were 5 miles and both required some walking.  During the first one, I ran into Stephanie, who is famous from my previous blog because I would randomly run into her (Random Stephanie Encounter or RSE).  I'm not sure if our meeting on Tuesday constitutes random since she does live in that neighborhood and takes a walk with her baby in the mornings.  But it was relatively random.  Certainly it was not planned.  Anyway, I used my RSE to walk for a bit, then stood and talked to Stephanie and her husband.  Also, I got to see their dogs, yay!  But anyway, you might think that standing around and talking was ill-advised because it would get too hot, except that while we were standing there, it got much cloudier.  The overcast made a big difference to finish the run.  Sure, there was ominous thunder in the distance, but no bad weather while I was out.

Yesterday, for various reasons, I chose the treadmill.  In part, this was due to the fact that I had scheduled a yoga class for 11am.  The other part is that I can be lazy in the mornings.

This morning I had high hopes since the weather looked somewhat more manageable than most days.  But around the half-way point, I felt the urge to walk, then got super annoyed and tried to figure out why.  The answer came to me when I reached the water fountain at around 4.25 miles, drank about a sports bottle's worth of water, filled my bottle, and managed to finish it during the last 0.75 of my run.  In short, I don't think I'm hydrating enough.  I'm going to try and be better by drinking more water during the day and am currently having a debate with myself as to whether I should try Gatorade again.  Gatorade used to upset my stomach, but I figure if I have it on a semi-regular basis, I should be okay.  I can think this over while I'm running up the Rocky steps in Philly.

If at first you don't succeed....

....come home, lie under the ceiling fan, and mope about the fact that you didn't finish your run.

Eventually, get up, go to the gym, and finish the remaining two miles on the treadmill.

On your way to the gym, see people outside, running, in the afternoon, looking perfectly content with their lives.  Wonder why you can't be one of these people.

Next time: start earlier.  Any running after 9:30am is probably pushing your luck.

Boo.

Next week's long run is in Philly.  Please may it be more reasonable weather.  Pretty please.

UPDATE

I just checked this morning's weather:

This explains a lot.

Yeah, that's considerably worse than normal.  A dewpoint of 77 is just cruel.

When it rains, it gets humid

I really wanted to go running yesterday.  Honest.  But I was zonked from yoga.  I also thought about doing a pool run, but then decided that it was probably better to just wait and run today instead.  My last three runs for this week are 3, 3, and 7, so not overly oenerous.

I really wanted to go running this morning...but I didn't.  No good reason for that except that I stayed out talking to friends for maybe too long.  Then maybe stayed up reading.  Hey, this is still a better reason than one of the mornings that I slept in last summer because I stayed up watching Cheers reruns.

I finally got around to running today after a yoga class.  Hurray!  The good news: it was stormy this afternoon, so the sun wasn't powerful (and we all learned yesterday about how the sun distorts the heat index).  The bad news: the lack of sun didn't burn away the humidity.  So the humidity was still over 80% even at 7pm.  In fact, although it felt considerably better than a normal run due to the lack of sun, it still managed to be over the threshold of ick since the temperature was 80F and the humidity 83%. 

I got going a bit too fast today and wound up having to walk because I was starting to get a side stitch at around 2.25 miles.  After walking for a bit, I slowed my pace down considerably so that I could complete the run (and I did).  The humidity was deceptive because it really did make things seem better.  Looks like Mr. Florida Humidity poses its own separate challenges from Mr. Florida Sun.

This explains a lot

The heat index is calculated with the assumption that the person is standing in the shade.  No wonder being in the sun makes it so much tougher!

What difference does being in the shade make?

Quite a big one. All of the National Weather Service’s charts for calculating the heat index make the reasonable assumption that folks will look for shade when it’s oppressively hot and muggy out. Direct sunlight can add up to 15 degrees to the calculated heat index.

I'm not crazy!  Thank you, Mental Floss.

Incidentally, yesterday I ran 4 miles without stopping.  Yay!  The weather was still a bit nicer than usual.  Went around 9am.  I had planned to go this morning, but was feeling worn out from a yoga class last night.  Instead, I'll go either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Wait.....what?!!

The dew point this morning was in the 60s.

Really.

Unprecedented.

When I first looked at the weather, I thought that I was misreading it or something.  But no, it was actually not so humid.  There was no sweat pooling at my elbow, for instance.  It was actually pleasant, believe it or not.  I still can't. 

The reason for the better weather is Tropical Storm Bret, which is currently off the east coast of Florida and soaking up a bunch of the humidity. Go Bret!

Today was hills, so I went back to the golf course neighborhood and added another hill.  They went pretty well.  Everything went pretty well.  Much better than normal!

Only one problem: I wore a pair of those little running socks.  I should know better since they almost always cause issues, but I thought that for such a short run, it would be okay.  And now I have blisters on my heels as a result.  With any luck, they won't affect tomorrow's run.  Otherwise, there might be another Curt Schilling incident.

Completing two more runs

Last weekend's runs were a 3 mile and an 8 mile as the long run (I'm getting caught up now, but have been staying on schedule, even if I haven't been blogging).  I was determined to complete the 3 miles without having to walk and fortunately, I accomplished this goal.  The weather seemed slightly more amenable than last Thursday, so maybe there was something particularly awful about that day.  It's encouraging that I completed the run since last week was getting frustrated.

Sunday I decided that even though I completed the 3 miles, I still wasn't ready to run 8 miles straight.  So I opted instead to do 0.05 walk/0.35 run throughout.  It went pretty well, although it was still extremely challenging.  No guilt about walking when conditions are that tough.  I also planned the run pretty well because I looped around a water fountain and I definitely took advantage.  Amazing how much liquid you can drink when it is hot out.

It felt funny doing a real long run again.  I wore my running belt, got my all-natural energy drink, took along some sport beans, and finished by downing a chocolate milk.  It's been a while since I needed all of these extras--since I was training for the marathon in fact.  It took me a little bit to remember the routine, but everything went quite well from the preparation standpoint.  Next week's long run goes down to 7 miles, although I think that I will probably run-walk it regardless.

One thing that I did not anticipate was that I need to go earlier because there is less shade than there was in winter.  As a result, I was in the sun more often, which I find challenging.  I think that I was accustomed to the sun being less fierce, but then again, the last long runs that I was doing were back in November, so things are a bit different.

Two incomplete runs, blech

I decided that this week was the week to stop with the walk/run and just go with running.  I think I have to retract that decision.  Today was better than yesterday, but both were not very good.  Blech.  It's frustrating to think that a month ago in Germany, I felt like I was running pretty well and now I feel like a failure.

Yesterday, I had things to do in the morning, so I waited until the evening to run.  I knew that this would be challenging because it would be hot and I expected to hit my two-mile wall, which occurs after running 2 miles before I heat adapt when I simply need to walk.  The weather last night was 89.6F with humidity of 62% when I went and the dew point was 75F.  That is not a nice dew point.  Also, the temperature and humidity definitely put that near the threshold of ick (when humidity + temperature > 160).  But I didn't even get to two miles.  After one mile, I had to start walking.  I think that I started too fast considering the conditions, which didn't help, but I was still frustrated by the result.

On to today.  Admittedly, I did get started a bit later than I would have liked, but I thought that the reduced humidity would make up for my tardiness (around 9am instead of 8am).  The dew point, according to Accuweather, was 77F, the temperature was 81F and the humidity was 86%.  Okay, so that's nasty.  But I'm still annoyed at myself for having to walk and not making it through my four miles.  I feel like I used to be able to get through these things but this year I have no capacity or stamina or something.  It's probably just no adaptation to the heat since I was gone for a while.  I'm still irritated about it.

So it will be treadmill later today to finish off the 2 miles that I didn't get done this morning.  And I've accepted that I will have to walk on Sunday during parts of the long run or I won't make it.  But it is really bugging me.

I mean, I guess the good news is that I got further today than yesterday before having to walk?  That's not really consolation.