Throttling summer

I am not a summer runner. I mean, I continue to run in the summer, but either I'm miserable or going pretty slowly...and sometimes both. The last few summers have been particularly smashing. Summer 2004: I was injured and in monsoon season in Korea getting some sort of weird heat rash...not much running. Summer 2005: I was even more injured so not running at all, but mostly travelling, including several weeks in the Middle East. And then we moved to Colorado and I burnt my lungs up just walking. lol Summer 2006: Virginia. I got heat exhaustion once. That pretty much sums it up, though I did enjoy sprinting in that heat and humidity. Long rest intervals, eh? Summer 2007: Maryland. Slightly less hot and humid than Virginia, but it seemed endless. The temps still hit 32C (not humidex) in mid/late October.

I really didn't want to go through another summer like that. Staying where we'd been living was an option too horrific to contemplate, but I had considered moving to Baltimore because it's one of my favourite cities. Definitely my favourite city so far on the East Coast. We lived there for a month or so, and I liked it. Lots to do, some good places to run (I did a few 3 hour runs there, and didn't get bored), heaps of great food, especially seafood!! And the atmos is great, down to earth. Plus, a friend of ours was trying to rent out a nifty apartment in Federal Hill and I was really really really tempted by that, and by the reasonable rents in general. But that summer! Yes, the murder rate is a consideration, too, but the summer scared me more. So I fled north.

However, my races this year between the Hypo 1/2 and the Hintonburg 5 were all too hot for racing. I'd sweated along, and took a more relaxed approach, pace-wise, to training, and then the Hintonburg race turned out to be a bit cooler, and overcast, and a breakthough.

So, my hopes were kind of high for today's time trial (5K), but at the same time, I wasn't sure if the Hintonburg result was a fluke--the weather certainly seemed to be!--plus I didn't want to take any time off of training. I hoped to do sub 7/mile but wasn't expecting that.

Well, I didn't quite pull that off. But close! The weather turned a bit cool and overcast, which was wonderful considering the sauna earlier in the week. I didn't feel totally in form, but I don't always do before tough workouts/races, so that didn't worry me. The route was along the Canal, and it was decided to run to the far end and race back, which was a bit of a wrench--I'd run to the run club as normal, and was already feeling a bit hot, and I'd already run the route opposite in my mind. But, I jogged down easily with the rest of the group.

My bowels then began to move a bit...this sort of thing, but far worse, was my bane last summer especially. The heat and high exertion make things cranky. There wasn't much I could do except ignore it.

We started and I pretended I felt cold. This is something I've been experimenting with lately. When I feel too hot, I slow down, so I'm trying to convince myself that I feel cool.

Anyway, the first KM was in about 4:16--way too fast!! Soon after, my legs began to feel lactic acidy, just a bit...I didn't intend to slow down, but I did a bit then and there, and then tried my best to hang in there. There were a couple of slightly faster people in front of me, and I managed to hang on. Even threw in a couple of surges when things started getting stiff, and that actually did help. Amazing how that works, and next time, I promise, I'll experiment with digging in a bit more. The other thing that went well was keeping my right shoulder up...running with the dog and holding the leash on that side has gotten me into that bad habit, which in turn makes my right arm stiff, and tends to jam up my right side in general. Anyway, I think the 2nd K mark was 8:40?? not sure, and I missed the 3K mark, but I was getting tired. 4K was in 17:42 or so, I think, a wilt...I tried to pick it up. Then my bowels started to protest again, but not too far from the end, so that couldn't have slowed me down much. I finished in 22:09, an ever-so-slightly faster pace than the Hintonburg race, which was sweet.

The time trial went by pretty quickly. My pacing still needs work, but I'm amazed at how well I've taken to 5Ks. Maybe I'm not running hard enough. The effort is hard, but knowing soon after I've started that I have less than 20 minutes to go makes the pain go away a LOT.

Well, once I got home, I hit the pace calculators big time. 22:09 translates to a chance of BQing at Philly. I've attempted this twice already (not counting my first marathon), and it was crushing to end up about ten minutes too long both times, especially the 2nd. It would suck majorly to fail again, but, hey, I'm uninjured, knock wood, have time to train properly, and have a decent base, a couple of 50+ mile weeks and 3 17-18ish mile runs this past month. And I'm feeling surprisingly fresh still, despite the summer, which maybe, knock wood, is starting to retreat. That is an odd feeling, and I hope I'm not jinxing by explaining it: is that all? Did I actually succeed in beating the heat?

So maybe it's time to try for Boston again.