It's a typical Alabama summer: hot, humid, and afternoon thunderstorms. I've been moving some runs to the lunch time and afternoon, hoping that my body will make some adaptations to the heat that will result in faster race times in the morning races. Also, I'm hoping that it will result in some really fast times when the temps cool off. We'll see. I'm hopeful and I'm hanging in there.
HTC Weekly XC Runs
On the 4th, I really tried not to overdo the food. I ate some bad stuff, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. I still had a bit of a food hangover on Tuesday when I ran the HTC Cross Country race at the John Hunt running park. It was especially humid. Yuck.
I was undecided about how to approach these. My stomach wasn't right, so I decided not to race and just do a 3 mile and a 2 mile tempo run. For the 3 mile, I tucked in behind Dewayne Satterfield and kept him in sight for most of the run. I had no intentions of passing him, but I also didn't want to let him get a way. He was a pretty good pacer for that 6:40-ish pace. I ran 20:08 or so.
For the 2 mile, I was feeling horrible and ready to just mail it in. I was going to run 8:00 to 8:30 miles. But then I got caught up with Jon Elmore and Timothy Pitt. I decided to just hang on to these guys and see what happened. We were running just under a 7:00 pace. Maybe 6:50 or so. Good enough. I felt like I could hold that, so I did. At the end, I could tell that they were going to make a race of it, so I joined in and out-kicked them down the final stretch to the finish line. It was fun. Maybe those 200m repeats are paying off!
Thursday Track
Thursday's track session was miserable. I planned 5x 1200m intervals. I could not do it. I could only do 4, and the 4th one nearly killed me. I ran 4:24, 4:26, 4:30 and 4:35. I knew that it wasn't my day and it was best to just mail it in and not even attempt the 5th. So, I added a couple extra easy miles to the cool down run. It was just a miserable workout, but I believe I accomplished some good. I got some positive stimulus without destroying my confidence.
Saturday Long
Today was a ho-hum 16 miler. I just wanted to get the miles done in the heat without coming apart. Mission accomplished. It wasn't pleasant. I have a lot of base to recover before marathon training begins. But I am surviving the summer without weight gain and without significant speed loss.
It's weird. I had a week where that I didn't feel good on any single run. But I still consider it a good week for some reason. Oh well, maybe I'm delusional. Definitely I'm delusional. I've always thought I'm faster and fitter than I really am.
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