Heat & Humidity!

Its been a month since my last post, and thankfully, the whole "no posts = no training" does not hold true this time! Though training has slowed in the past month for 2 reasons: 1) i was on vacation for 9 days and 2) it has been ridiculously hot and humid here in the NYC. Lets see how much I can recap.

First things first, I've reached the "GREEN" level on My Nike+ ! Meaning I've exceeded 155 miles run, this year alone! Thats probably more than I've run in my entire life up to the beginning of this year.

So I left off my recaps on a really good note, logging my longest run (7 miles!). Its been a bit downhill since then, no pun intended.  In my week before vacation, I did 2 runs, for 5 miles each. First one was a tempo run, and for the second, I had fully intended to do another long run (7 miles), but the heat/humidity was too much to bear, and I had to cut it off after struggling through 5.2 miles. Then, it was off to Aruba!  The resort actually had organized runs at 7am on a couple days, which I REALLY wanted to join. But of course, its in the AM, and well, quite frankly, I WAS ON VACATION. Though I missed those runs, I was able to make it to the gym (at about 10pm) one night. Did some lifting (half of P90X Chest & Back, actually), then hopped on the treadmill. Did about 3 miles, and it appears the workout preceding it had wiped me out a bit, as I was pretty maxed out at 3 miles.

So, upon returning (2 days later actually), was the Dash & Splash 10k in Central Park. How'd I do? Lets just say that it probably was not the best idea to sign up for a race thats 2 days after you were just on vacation for about 9 days.  We'll chalk it up to that, being extremely humid, and the fact that I probably wasn't properly nourished and hydrated for the race. I had to start walking around the 3 mile mark, and in fact, probably walked more than I ran in the final 2 miles.  I've never been so disappointed, ever! (ok, maybe I have, but just to give you an idea of my disappointment with my finish). I wont even get into my numbers, lets just leave it at, they were abysmal.

So since that race, it has been pretty hot and humid, so my performance and running has suffered significantly. Did a couple tempo runs, but had to keep most short, and as I saw during the 10k, could not really make it past mile 3. Finally, yesterday, we had our first low humidity day in a long while, and I was able to go out and do the 5.2 miles in Central Park, sans any breaks. What a wonder that did to boost my confidence again. OK! So thats my "brief" recap of the past month. Hope to be back to my weekly updates next week. 'Till next time...