Friday, June 06, 2008

forecast -- hotter than the sun

I did a moderate 9.3 at work Wednesday. Thursday I was planning on sneaking in some extra, but very slow, mileage since I knew I wouldn't be able to run today (Friday) because of the intrusion of real life. After a couple of miles I realized the ball of my foot still hurt and I'd developed this new ache in my arch. Running 9 miles like that, no matter how slowly, didn't strike me as in the spirit of the cut back week. I cut off my loop and turned in 5.3 miles. My heartrate pace were very good for me -- 8:55 at 134 bpm.

Today I'm taking the necessary big fat zero. I haven't decided on tomorrow yet, but will probably do my 8.6 route. Sunday I'm planning to a 5-miler that's being held on my usual long run route.

The forecast for the weekend is a high of 97 on both Saturday and Sunday. This isn't your southwestern dry heat 97. This is dewpoint of 70 type 97. At 8am on Sunday the race should start with 77 degrees and a dew point of 70. Given the surface (dirt and gravel) and the hills, I'm not expecting a PR.

There will be a number of people who ran the 5k at this race. I'll probably key off one guy in particular. Based on last years results, I should finish a couple of places behind him. I figure I'll let it settle out that way in the first mile and then try to hold or improve my position. I've also thought of just trying to go with him and seeing how long I can suffer. He beat me by 50 secs at the 5k though, so that might not be the best strategy :-)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

8.6 miles is a lot of miles the day before a race...I'd seriously just take a 45 jog; it's a cutback week, don't sweat it.

Greg said...

Just got back from my 8.6 and saw your message :-) I guess I still am more a slave to weekly mileage than I'd like to admit. I kinda wish I saw it before I ran because I could have used it to rationalize 35 minutes less in the humidity. It was 70 deg and 100% humidity and visibility was maybe 100-200 yards with the fog. It felt like running underwater. I took it very easy though (9:22 pace).

Anonymous said...

At that pace, I'd say the effects it has on tomorrow will be relatively minimal. This isn't the time in the cycle to put down PRs anyway. Make sure to put in a decent warm-up and cooldown.