The humidity continues! More crazy hot, sweaty runs this week – oof! The first one was a fun run date on Tuesday morning with my high school BFF Jenny. She’s in town visiting and Tuesday was her birthday – fun way to start the day. 
I didn’t want to make her get up too early on her birthday so we started a little after 8 a.m. The extra sleep was awesome but the extra heat was not. It was blazing out there!
I read an interesting article in the New York Times the other day about changes in performance when running in heat and humidity – it made me feel better about my runs being much slower in the heat! I’ve heard people comparing heat training to altitude training – hoping all these hot runs pay off come October for the Marine Corps Marathon.
We kept it short and sweet and had fun chatting away. It was so hot we ended up walking the last half mile – fine with me!
Yesterday morning I fled to the air conditioning and met up with Chelsea and Kathleen for our weekly boot camp – this week we hit up Urban Athletic Club via ClassPass (<—only one more day to get $30 off your first month with this affiliate link).
As for today, it was back to the humidity! I met up with my track group bright and early. I was at happy hour last night so I wasn’t feeling amazingly energized when I got out there, but a couple laps in once I warmed up I actually ended up feeling relatively decent. It was a tough one, though – here’s what we did:
- Warm up
- 1 mile at threshold pace (10 miler or half marathon pace)
- rest 1 to 2 minutes
- 400m (one lap) at 5k pace
- rest 3 minutes
- 1 mile at threshold pace
- rest 1 to 2 minutes
- 400m at 5k pace
- rest 3 minutes
- Five 200m (half lap) sprints – all out effort with a short walking break in between each
- Cool down
That was a speedy one! As my coaches said, the goal of speedwork is to learn to run quickly in a controlled way – basically understanding how to go faster while still maintaining proper form, and not completely falling apart because you go out too fast/don’t pace yourself properly. Having track coaches has made such a difference for me in terms of all of this!
I have 14 miles on the docket this weekend as my long run, and lucky for me my track buddy Diane has a step down week (she’s training for the Chicago Marathon, which is a few weeks earlier than MCM so she’s already higher in mileage) so she’s also supposed to do 14 miles! Perfect. Yay for company!
When I got home this morning I refueled with my flour free breakfast pancake but in microwave form because I didn’t feel like dirtying a pan. Topped with plain Greek yogurt, berries, and a sprinkling of slivered almonds and walnuts. It was super filling and I didn’t need all of it so I saved some to enjoy as a mid morning snack. Thinking of breaking into it now!
Back to work! Enjoy your days, my friends!
Which do you think is worse: running in the heat (aka hot temperatures) or running in humidity? According to the NYTimes article, hot temperatures are harder – they said it’s better to do a run in the early morning when the temperature is lower but the humidity is higher, rather than the evening when the temperature is high but the humidity is a bit lower. Interesting! I find both hard, but I agree with their heat assessment – especially if the sun is blazing. Having the hot sun on me makes such a difference in my performance – I get so drained!
Running in Heat vs. Humidity: which is worse? originally appeared on fANNEtastic food | Registered Dietitian Blog | Recipes + Healthy Living + Fitness on July 28, 2016.
The post Running in Heat vs. Humidity: which is worse? appeared first on fANNEtastic food | Registered Dietitian Blog | Recipes + Healthy Living + Fitness.