....This is the focus for the next four weeks of my training program. However, it becomes much more difficult in the heat.
Yesterday, on the last day of January, the temperature soared to 37deg and was positively steaming later in the day. In the morning I went to the gym for upper body strength work, abs and stretches. I headed for Parliament House at about 5pm to meet up with speedygeoff on his return from an 8km run.
We ran a very short warm-up before meeting up with the others for the main session. It was a small turn-out tonight, just ten of us, probably due to the extremely hot temperature. My car thermometer showed 39deg as I approached PH. We are having a brief heat wave. Fortunately in Canberra these heat waves don't usually last more than a week or two before we have a reprieve and according to the forecast some more rain.
Our main session consisted of a warm-up loop in and out the slightly shady trails and a practice of the 950m loop before running 3 x 950m undulating loops as fast as we could manage in the heat. Some of it was in the shade but even that was hot. In between the repeats we drank heaps of water and ran 400m along the straight grass by the road with Joel who was doing 200m sprint repeats. After our warm down, I continued on for a few kms with Susan, Ewen and Andy to make up my distance for the day.
Total distance: 13km
Total distance for January: 343km
Tuesday 1 February (today)
After a very late night last night I could only manage to run out the door just before 8am which was leaving it far too late as the temperature was already in the 20s. Today's maximum is 38deg but there's a hot wind blowing now and it's quite unpleasant. Thankfully I was back from my run before this happened. It was supposed to be a tempo session but I struggled with speed. Instead I ran faster in the shaded areas and slower in the exposed areas. I stripped off to my crop top very early in the run - the less clothes the better as long as I have heaps of sunblock on, even at that time of day.
Total distance: 11km (including some tempo running and some fartlek intervals)
Calories burned: 650
After reaching home I changed into my swimmers and headed for the pool for a refreshing 1km swim. I am very slow but it was absolutely wonderful to fit that in before heading off to town to meet a friend for lunch.
How come you had such a late night?!
ReplyDeleteYes, even hotter today. I'm going to run without my shirt, but I'll wait until dark so the neighbours don't ring the police.
I agree, the less clothes the better. You need to get out with us one day, it's well worth the effort. Bring plenty of sun block, you can apply liberally if you wish.
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