Very poor training run today.
To put this in context, I'm training for the Red Wing half-marathon next saturday. Over the past few months, I've done several 12-13 milers, and the last three weeks have featured 14, 15 and 16 mile runs repsectively. All of these were great. I had no problem competing these at a pace of ~8:50. I'm aiming for an 8:20 race pace, and I've put in some shorter runs at this pace, including a 6-miler this past Sunday.
So today I go to do my last "long" run before the race, which is only going to be 10 miles. Rather than do another over-distance run, I wanted to do an up-tempo shorter long run. My plan was to do the first 7.5 miles at 8:40 and do the last 2.5 at goal pace. I'm doing this run on a high school track because I don't want to be cooped up indoors, but I want to be able to listen to music without worrying about traffic. I also want to do my long runs on a soft, forgiving surface for injury-prevention issues. I've done at least one shorter run per week on asphalt/concrete for HTFU purposes, but I like to minimize injury risks on my long runs.
I get to the track at about 8:30. Already it's 75 and the sun is beating down from a cloudless sky (bonus points if you can guess where this story is going). It's also fairly humid. One of the older guys I've seen on this track before talks to me a little while I'm warming up and basically comments that it's too hot to run. He has a point, but this distance is my bread-and-butter. I would guess I do at least 10 miles once a week from February through October, dropping down to 8 miles in my off-season, so this is a totally routine distance for me. And I did 16 last week. Ten miles will fly by.
So I get started, and I notice that I am drenched with sweat about a mile into my run. No big deal. I knew it was hot and I have plenty of water. I'm planning to stop for fluids every 2.5 miles.
The first water break got there before I knew it. I took a drink and got going again. At mile 5, I was having no problem at all maintaining 8:40 and I was feeling great. I remember thinking to myself "I can't believe I'm halfway done; I barely feel like I've gotten started." Well, by mile 6 or so, I wasn't feeling so great anymore. I was really, really hot and starting to feel ill. As I approached the 7.5-mile water stop, I momentarily considered skipping that stop because I was having no real problems maintaining pace, but I worried that if I stopped momentarily to drink, I wouldn't be able to get going again. However, I'm smart enough to know that if you're encountering heat-related problems, skipping your water breaks is a magnificently bad solution. So I stopped for water and sure enough as soon as I quit running I immediately thought I was going to puke for sure. I couldn't even drink anything because I was positive it would just be coming right back up. After a minute or two my nausea passed and I was able to drink, but I made the decision that I was done for the day at that point. This is the first time I can recall having to cut a run short in years.
Obviously this kind of sucks, but there are multiple silver linings here. First of all, if I was going to bonk any training run, this would be the run to bonk. My endurance and speed are both pretty much whatever they're going to be next Saturday. I probably could have skipped this run altogether and it wouldn't have made much difference. Bonking this run also isn't that confidence-draining, because I know this was due to the onset of heat exhaustion. This run ended up being 7.5 miles at 8:36, which is about the pace that I did my previous easy half-marathon at back in May on very little training, so it's not like I was pushing any physical limits here and came up short. Finally, I anticipate doing marathon training this time next year, and this run is a good lesson for me that I need to respect the heat. This is the second time I've had problems with heat, the other time being my 15-miler which I finished but could not have gone another mile safely. When I'm doing long runs next summer, I need to be sure to stay slow and get out there at daybreak instead of sleeping in. Lesson learned.
Edit: Oh yeah, I also learned that I may have to abandon my 8:20 goal pace next week depending on weather conditions since I now know I'm not capable of doing this if it's going to be hot. The bad news is that the race doesn't start until 8:00, but my FIL who lives in Red Wing says that the course is mostly shaded (its an out-and-back on a bike trail). We'll see how it goes.
2/3/1 this morning, goal pace for the 3 was 8:00 and I hit 7:59 - barely. Really had to rush the last .4 miles to get in under 8. Probably a good & bad thing depending on how you look at it. Falling squarely into the "what was I thinking?!??" category I did 3 sets of lunges on the way home. Was planning on biking or swimming tomorrow, but we'll see how bad the legs feel. I also need to decide how far to run on Saturday - training program says 8, but I'm thinking I may venture over to the race trail in prep for the 12k in 2 weeks, which would be closer to 10 miles total. I really feel like I need to redeem myself after the 10k.
I no longer think I ####ed out on the hills, I think I made a few wise decesions. Below is what one of the guys posted over on BeginnerTriathlete about his wipeout last night:"I was part of the carnage. Had a great 1/3 of a race: third out of the water, of the orange caps. this was told to me by my spotter (GF). only got a 1/4 mile on the bike reached down to tighten my shoes hit a hole that turned my wheel and with only one hand on the bars down i went slid about 20ft on my back. road rash on every single appendage. my back is the worst full lenght on both sides. hit my foot pretty hard, so its really swollen today. bike needs a tune-up nothing major thankfully. You may have seen me walking back, Yellow and black uniform. too pissed off to stay and cheer. hope you all did well. (third crash this summer 1. 16stiches in lower leg, 2. split helmet in half road rash on back, 3. discribed above.) Great Sport hahaha."
Just incredible what people can do.
