Well, that felt good! Today, I decided to wake up earlier and hit the road earlier than I usually do on my midweek runs. After last Tuesday’s aborted run due to the heat and lightheadedness, I was able to get out the door and pound the semi-heated pavement by 7:15 a.m. It was still very humid and warm but the sun’s heat wasn’t on full blast yet. Despite this, I still deliberately slowed down my pace so I could run a little longer than I did on Tuesday. Aside from listening to Ryan Seacrest on the radio, I was also listening to my body and monitoring how I felt the whole time. No, I didn’t have to bring an umbrella for shade or a fan to cool myself. I just tried to run on the shady side of the street as much as possible. The earliness, the shade, and the slowdown helped a lot because I managed to finish a whole hour, more or less comfortably. I even managed to do three stride outs in the last few minutes.
There are certain advantages to deliberately slowing down the pace. In my case the pounding is lesser and I don’t have to push off my feet harder so my bad ankles are not overstretched, and that means lesser pain at the end of the run. The disadvantage is that I don’t feel that it works my cardiovascular system hard enough. But aside from that trade off, I’m quite happy with my effort today and I hope the confidence that it gave me carries over to Saturday’s 14 miler in similar hot conditions.
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