Marathon Training Week 3 - Chasing The 6:00am Club
Maybe you're somehow not aware, but it's miserably, oppressively hot outside.
This isn't my steering wheel is a little too warm in the afternoon kind of hot either. It's literally 80 degrees with 75% humidity at 5:30am kind of hot.
On Monday, I was making up a 6 miler that I had neglected over the weekend and I figured I would get an early start so I was getting cranked up around 7:30am. That turned out to be one of the most miserable 6 miles of my life. Scarcely more than an hour after the sun came up, the heat index was already pushing 90 with humidity getting over 90%. If my measurements were accurate, I lost around 5 pounds of water over about an hour of running which is not exactly a sweat-rate I would consider sustainable as my runs start getting longer again.
The 5:30am figure I referenced above is accurate and on my mind because I woke up around 5:00am yesterday for my 3 mile run thinking, "yes, I'm up before sunrise and it won't be as hot as the last several runs I've done when I felt like I might die." Part of that was correct, it wasn't technically quite as hot, but the difference was almost negligible. Regardless, I know I have to get these runs in to stay on target for my November marathon goal so aiming for the 6:00am club is my best shot at not getting heat stroke along the way.
For the mid-week run of week 3, today was a race-pace 6 miler and I ended up getting out right around sunrise, a bit later than I would have liked, but fortunately the weather was a little kinder to me and it was only around 75 degrees. It didn't feel so much like walking into a steam bath as soon as I stepped outside so I'll count that as a win.
Getting up and out that early is not an easy transition for me, but at least there was an attractive sunrise to look at.
My pace was about 30 seconds per mile off of what I would like my target pace to be, but it was about a minute per mile faster than what I did on the same route on Monday. Additionally, I felt markedly less close to death and significantly less water-logged at the end of my run today, which really helps start the day off with a more positive and less exhausted mentality. I'm also trying to give myself a bit of a break on pace and focus more on getting the mileage in for my first marathon.
Are you training for a fall race? Do you have a secret weapon for training in the heat? Let me know! I'd love to hear from you.