Plan called for 7k today and I was happy to get back to a bit of a distance. It's weird - two weeks ago I ran my longest distance ever, 15k. Felt fantastic. There was a good degree of cloud cover and everything was in sync. One of those overall great runs that just leave you feeling fanfrickintastic as you round the corner to home.Last weekend I spent too much time in the garden and pooched my hamstrings. Ouch! Had a 5k race the next day and man, did that hurt! So it was great to get the kms back up a bit, even a little bit!
At the same time it felt a bit strange to ONLY be doing 7k, strange though that may sound. There was a time when the very thought of 7k would fill me with dread. That's far, yo! But not today. Today I was ready to pound the pavement once again and round out week one of training.
While the schedule calls for the LSD to be run on Sundays, for me, Saturdays are way better so that's when I'll likely do most of these long slow distance runs. This weekend was no exception, so I got up early-ish this morning to get out there.
I love sleeping in as much as anyone else so yeah, it's a challenge to get up at like 7:30 am on a Saturday to prep for a longer run. But had I known how hot it would be I would have sacrificed sleep for better conditions hands down.
Got out the door at 8:20 and realized the error of my ways. While the temperature wasn't insane and there was a decent breeze, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and that sun was relentless. Zoinks.
Now, I know the plan called for 7 but I have a lovely 8k route that I like - see that nice, neat box up there? - so since I knew I was a few kms behind since missing Wednesday I thought adding an extra k wouldn't hurt anything.
Thank goodness I didn't shoot for my 10k route - I never would have made it.
At the 4.5k mark I was in rough shape. The sun was trying to kill me. True story. Just beating down on me, relentless. Didn't matter how much water I drank, I thought I was going to pass out. I did everything I could to stay on the shady parts of the sidewalk and no dice - killer conditions. I tried to go with my 6 and 1 intervals but at certain points it felt like I walked 6 and ran 1 it was that bad. At one point I quite seriously considered calling my husband and asking him to come pick me up. Yep, it was that bad.
Was incredibly happy to be home and didn't give a flip about my eventual pace or run stats. I was just delighted to have made it.
Lesson learned - on this crazy hot days, get up earlier then go back to bed after your run. The sacrifice of that bit of sleep will be well, well worth it.
Schedule calls for 3k steady again so I'm already setting that alarm for 6:30. Can't have a repeat of today or I'll never survive this!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment