Today's 7.18 Mile Run

My idea of cooking cheap pasta at home and taking it to work for some moderate pre-run carbohydrate-loading worked perfectly. Friday afternoon I boiled a box of bow-tie pasta that I had just bought in a buy-one-get-one-free deal and mixed it with a jar of spaghetti sauce that I also got BOGO. I took a large portion of my concoction to work and ate it cold during my early evening lunch break there. Today I started out on my planned 7.18 mile run around noon, after waiting for the humidity to abate to a reasonable level. When I started my run, the temperature was 89 and the humidity was 63%, better than that 80% humidity I struggled through earlier this week. When I completed the 7.18 miles winding up and down through my neighbood streets, the heat had gone up to 89 and the humidity down to 55%.

Because of the summer heat, I couldn't characterize today's run as being pleasant. However, thanks largely to last night's pasta, I had plenty of energy, running at a pretty high (for me) pace and finishing it in 1:05:19. As usual, I kept myself hydrated throughout the run by carrying with me a bottle of G2 and taking a gulp every seven minutes or so. I also listened to my own personalized MP3 mix of favorite songs, which helped to take the edge off the run's severity. I felt no sign of the foot and leg pain that were problems in previous weeks and months. The post-run recovery is also going quite smoothly.

In spite of the heat-induced discomfort, today's run was successful in that it reestablished my ability to run in the heat of the summer without feeling the need to duck indoors and run on the treadmill. Not that I am forsaking the treadmill, which has served me well during the last few weeks: I just like outdoors running more!

Oh, it also helped that I was off from work today and could start my run later than usual, giving me the chance to better wait for that oppressive morning humidity to dissipate. It might be better in the long run, though, for me to run around sunrise, when the humidity is very high but the temperatures are more reasonable. For where I live, summer lasts a long, long time! And at least that way I wouldn't be concerning myself with "running" out of time before work. But it can be quite an ordeal trying to drag myself out of bed that time of day...