The Heat Effect

This weekend was time for another long run.  The plan, such as it was, was to get up early Saturday and knock it out from about 8 until 9:30 or so, before kid activities took over the day.  That didn't happen; slept too late, so i improvised and decided to go about 2 pm.  At 8 am or so, it was about 60 degrees.  At 2 pm, it was in the low 80s and a spectacular day.  That meant that my usual long run track -- a paved path that is relatively flat -- would be overwhelmed with walkers, bikers, dogs, leashes, you name it.  Be impossible to keep pace.  So I decided to run around my neighborhood, which I know is hilly.  More on that later.  I also didn't have a set track.  I wanted to go 9-10 miles, and that is a funny distance for my route. And that sort of aimless wandering to add distance made it mentally tough, not knowing mile marks or how to get the distance in with just running a zig zag route up and down a bunch of streets.

But what really caught me off guard was the heat.  Its a big difference between 60 and 80. It went form crisp to warm.  And the effect of the hills...ooh that made it hard too.  Doing some quick research, 10 degrees affects performance by about 3%.  Ouch, so somewhere in neighborhood of 5% or so.  And the hills...up and down, up and down, and given I didn't know my length...around, and up and down.

I was really happy I did it, but been more happy I finished.  Just wasn't a real enjoyable run, with the heat, the uncertainty, the hills, the lack of a defined route, etc.

One thing I know I need to work on is the mental side.  Mental toughness.  I am not there yet.  I don't have the confidence that I am going to go out and just stick the run.  I come back and look at my heart rate data, and it is pretty good.  But I just don;t feel like I am kicking it. I am sort of worried about this given I have a half marathon in a month, but more training, etc., will really benefit me.


Hope your weekend plan came out better than mine!  (And I can never get a good copy of my splits from Garmin Connect! Anyone know how to cut and paste into a post?)

One other thing I did was that I ran with Nike GPS (already had my phone on me for tunes), and it did a really good job.  Within about 20 yards of Garmin.  Of course, though, it was much harder to start and stop at traffic lights, water stops, etc., so I can't put then exactly together, but it did a nice job.

3
Split Time Distance Avg Pace 1 8:19.3 1.00 8:19 2 8:30.8 1.00 8:31 3 8:44.4 1.00 8:44 4 8:49.8 1.00 8:50 5 8:20.2 1.00 8:20 6 9:01.1 1.00 9:01 7 8:09.1 1.00 8:09 8 8:30.2 1.00 8:30 9 8:53.1 1.00 8:53 10 :28.4 0.04 10:57 11 5:36.6 0.18 31:38
10	:28.4	0.04	10:57
11	5:36.6	0.18